Glossin was no sooner mounted and gone, than the Colonel despatched a groom for Mr. Mac-Morlan, and, putting the deed into his hand, requested to know if it was likely to be available to his friend Lucy Bertram. Mac-Morlan perused it with eyes that sparkled with delight, snapped his fingers repeatedly, and at length exclaimed, "Available!—it's as tight as a glove—naebody could make better wark than Glossin, when he didna let down a steek on purpose.—But (his countenance falling) the auld b—, that I should say so, might alter at pleasure!"

"Ah! And how shall we know whether she has done so?"

"Somebody must attend on Miss Bertram's part, when the repositories of the deceased are opened."

"Can you go?" said the Colonel. "I fear I cannot," replied Mac-Morlan; "I must attend a jury trial before our court."

"Then I will go myself," said the Colonel; "I'll set out to-morrow. Sampson shall go with me—he is witness to this settlement. But I shall want a legal adviser?"

"The gentleman that was lately Sheriff of this county is high in reputation as a barrister; I will give you a card of introduction to him."

"What I like about you, Mr. Mac-Morlan," said the Colonel, "is, that you always come straight to the point. Let me have it instantly—shall we tell Miss Lucy her chance of becoming an heiress?"

"Surely, because you must have some powers from her, which I will instantly draw out. Besides, I will be caution for her prudence, and that she will consider it only in the light of a chance."

Mac-Morlan judged well. It could not be discerned from Miss Bertram's manner that she founded exulting hopes upon the prospect thus unexpectedly opening before her. She did indeed, in the course of the evening, ask Mr. Mac-Morlan, as if by accident, what might be the annual income of the Hazlewood property; but shall we therefore aver for certain that she was considering whether an heiress of four hundred a year might be a suitable match for the young Laird?



CHAPTER XXXVI.

Give me a cup of sack, to make mine eyes look red—For I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein. Henry IV. Part 1

MANNERING, with Sampson for his companion, lost no time in his journey to Edinburgh. They travelled in the Colonel's post-chariot, who, knowing his companion's habits of abstraction, did not choose to lose him out of his own sight, far less to trust him on horseback, where, in all probability, a knavish stable-boy might with little address have contrived to mount him with his face to the tail. Accordingly, with the aid of his valet, who attended on horseback, he contrived to bring Mr. Sampson safe to an inn in Edinburgh,—for hotels in those days there were none,—without any other accident than arose from his straying twice upon the road. On one occasion he was recovered by Barnes, who understood his humour, when, after engaging in close colloquy with the schoolmaster of Moffat, respecting a disputed quantity in Horace's 7th Ode, Book ll., the dispute led on to another controversy, concerning the exact meaning of the word Malobathro, in that lyric effusion. His second escapade was made for the purpose of visiting the field of Rullion-green, which was dear to his Presbyterian predilections. Having got out of the carriage for an instant, he saw the sepulchral monument of the slain at the distance of about a mile, and was arrested by Barnes in his progress up the Pentland Hills, having on both occasions forgot his friend, patron, and fellow-traveller, as completely as if he had been in the East Indies. On being reminded that Colonel Mannering was waiting for him, he uttered his usual ejaculation of "Prodigious!—I was oblivious," and then strode back to his post. Barnes was surprised at his master's patience on both occasions, knowing by experience how little he brooked neglect or delay; but the Dominie was in every respect a privileged person. His patron and he were never for a moment in each other's way, and it seemed obvious that they were formed to be companions through life. If Mannering wanted a particular book, the Dominie could bring it; if he wished to have accounts summed up, or checked, his assistance was equally ready; if he desired to recall a particular passage in the classics, he could have recourse to the Dominie as to a dictionary; and all the while, this walking statue was neither presuming when noticed, nor sulky when left to himself. To a proud, shy, reserved man, and such in many respects was Mannering, this sort of living catalogue, and animated automaton, had all the advantages of a literary dumb-waiter.

As soon as they arrived in Edinburgh, and were established at the George Inn near Bristol Port, then kept by old Cockburn (I love to be particular), the Colonel desired the waiter to procure him a guide to Mr. Pleydell's, the advocate, for whom he had a letter of introduction from Mr. Mac-Morlan. He then commanded Barnes to have an eye to the Dominie, and walked forth with a chairman, who was to usher him to the man of law.

The period was near the end of the American war. The desire of room, of air, and of decent accommodation, had not as yet made very much progress in the capital of Scotland. Some efforts had been made on the south side of the town towards building houses within themselves, as they are emphatically termed; and the New Town on the north, since so much extended, was then just commenced. But the great bulk of the better classes, and particularly those connected with the law, still lived in flats or dungeons of the Old Town. The manners also of some of the veterans of the law had not admitted innovation. One or two eminent lawyers still saw their clients in taverns, as was the general custom fifty years before; and although their habits were already considered as old-fashioned by the younger barristers, yet the custom of mixing wine and revelry with serious business was still maintained by those serious counsellors, who loved the old road, either because it was such, or because they had got too well used to it to travel any other. Among those praisers of the past time, who with ostentatious obstinacy affected the manners of a former generation, was this same Paulus Pleydell, Esq., otherwise a good scholar, an excellent lawyer, and a worthy man.

Under the guidance of his trusty attendant, Colonel Mannering, after threading a dark lane or two, reached the High Street, then clanging with the voices of oyster-women and the bells of pie-men; for it had, as his guide assured him, just "chappit [*struck] eight upon the Tron." It was long since Mannering had been in the street of a crowded metropolis, which, with its noise and clamour, its sounds of trade, of revelry and of licence, its variety of lights, and the eternally changing bustle of its hundred groups, offers, by night especially, a spectacle, which, though composed of the most vulgar materials when they are separately considered, has, when they are combined, a striking and powerful effect on the imagination. The extraordinary height of the houses was marked by lights, which, glimmering irregularly along their front, ascended so high among the attics, that they seemed at length to twinkle in the middle sky. This coup d'oeil, which still subsists in a certain degree, was then more imposing, owing to the uninterrupted range of buildings on each side, which, broken only at the space where the North Bridge joins the main street, formed a superb and uniform Place, extending from the front of the Luckenbooths to the head of the Canongate, and corresponding in breadth and length to the uncommon height of the buildings on either side.

Mannering had not much time to look and to admire. His conductor hurried him across this striking scene, and suddenly dived with him into a very steep paved lane. Turning to the right, they entered a scale-staircase, as it is called, the state of which, so far as it could be judged of by one of his senses, annoyed Mannering's delicacy not a little. When they had ascended cautiously to a considerable height, they heard a heavy rap at a door, still two stories above them. The door opened, and immediately ensued the sharp and worrying bark of a dog, the squalling of a woman, the screams of an assaulted cat, and the hoarse voice of a man, who cried in a most imperative tone, Will ye, Mustard? will ye?—down, sir! down!"

"Lord preserve us!" said the female voice, "an he had worried our cat, Mr. Pleydell would ne'er hae forgi'en me!"

"Aweel, my doo, [*dove ] the cat's no a prin the waur—so he's no in, ye say?"

"Na, Mr. Pleydell's ne'er in the house on Saturday at e'en," answered the female voice.

"And the morn's Sabbath too," said the querist "I dinna ken what will be done."

By this time Mannering appeared, and found a tall strong countryman, clad in a coat of pepper-and-salt coloured mixture, with huge metal buttons, a glazed hat and boots, and a large horsewhip beneath his arm, in colloquy with a slipshod damsel—I, who had in one hand the lock of the door, and in the other a pail of whiting, or camstane, as it is called, mixed with water—a circumstance which indicates Saturday night in Edinburgh.

"So Mr. Pleydell is not at home, my good girl?" said Mannering.

"Ay, sir, he's at hame, but he's no in the house: he's aye out on Saturday at e'en."

"But, try good girl, I am a stranger, and my business express—Will you tell me where I can find him?"

"His honour," said the chairman, "will be at Clerihugh's about this time—Hersell could hae tell'd ye that, but she thought ye wanted to see his house."

"Well, then, show me to this tavern—I suppose he will see me, as I come on business of some consequence?"

"I dinna ken, sir," said the girl; "he disna like to be disturbed on Saturdays wi' business—but he's aye civil to strangers."

"I'll gang to the tavern too," said our friend Dinmont, "for I am a stranger also, and on business e'en sic like."

"Na," said the handmaiden, "an he see the gentleman, he'll see the simple body too—but, Lord's sake, dinna say it was me sent ye there!"

"Atweel, I am a simple body, that's true, hinny, but I am no come to steal ony o' his skeel for naething," said the farmer in his honest pride, and strutted away downstairs, followed by Mannering and the cadie. Mannering could not help admiring the determined stride with which the stranger who preceded them divided the press, shouldering from him, by the mere weight and impetus of his motion, both drunk and sober passengers. "He'll be a Teviotdale tup tat ane," said the chairman, "tat's for keeping ta crown o' ta causeway tat gate—he'll no gang far or he'll get somebody to bell ta cat wi' him."

His shrewd augury, however, was not fulfilled. Those who recoiled from the colossal weight of Dinmont, on looking up at his size and strength, apparently judged him too heavy metal to be rashly encountered, and suffered him to pursue his course unchallenged. Following in the wake of this first-rate, Mannering proceeded till the farmer made a pause, and, looking back to the chairman, said, "I'm thinking this will be the close, friend?"

"Ay, ay," replied Donald, "tat's ta close."

Dinmont descended confidently, then turned into a dark alley— then up a dark stair—and then into an open door. While he was whistling shrilly for the waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs, Mannering looked round him, and could hardly conceive how a gentleman of a liberal profession, and good society, should choose such a scene for social indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance, the house itself seemed paltry and half ruinous. The passage in which they stood had a window to the close, which admitted a little light during the daytime, and a villainous compound of smells at all times, but more especially towards evening. Corresponding to this window was a borrowed light on the other side of the passage, looking into the kitchen, which had no direct communication with the free air, but received in the daytime, at second hand, such straggling and obscure light as found its way from the lane through the window opposite. At present, the interior of the kitchen was visible by its own huge fires—a sort of Pandemonium, where men and women, half undressed, were busied in baking, broiling, roasting oysters, and preparing devils on the gridiron; the mistress of the place, with her shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling like that of Megaera from under a round-eared cap, toiling, scolding, receiving orders, giving them, and obeying them all at once, seemed the presiding enchantress of that gloomy and fiery region.

Loud and repeated bursts of laughter, from different quarters of the house, proved that her labours were acceptable, and not unrewarded by a generous public. With some difficulty a waiter was prevailed upon to show Colonel Mannering and Dinmont the room where their friend, learned in the law, held his hebdomadal carousals. The scene which it exhibited, and particularly the attitude of the counsellor himself, the principal figure therein, struck his two clients with amazement.

Mr. Pleydell was a lively, sharp-looking gentleman, with a professional shrewdness in his eye, and, generally speaking, a professional formality in his manners. But this, like his three-tailed wig and black coat, he could slip off on a Saturday evening, when surrounded by a party of jolly companions, and disposed for what he called his altitudes. On the present occasion, the revel had lasted since four o'clock, and, at length, under the direction of a venerable compotater, who had shared the sports and festivity of three generations, the frolicsome company had begun to practise the ancient and now forgotten pastime of High-jinks. This game was played in several different ways. Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to assume and maintain, for a time, a certain fictitious character, or to repeat a certain number of fescennine verses in a particular order. If they departed from the characters assigned, or if their memory proved treacherous in the repetition, they incurred forfeits, which were either compounded for by swallowing an additional bumper, or by paying a small sum towards the reckoning. At this sport the jovial company were closely engaged, when Mannering entered the room.

Mr. Counsellor Pleydell, such as we have described him, was enthroned as a monarch, in an elbow-chair, placed, on the dining-table, his scratch wig on one side, his head crowned with a bottle-slider, his eye leering with an expression betwixt fun and the effects of wine, while his court around him resounded with such crambo scraps of verse as these .

Where is Gerunto now? and what's become of him?

Gerunto's drowned because he could not swim, etc. etc.

Such, O Themis, were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children! Dinmont was first in the room. He stood aghast a moment,—and then exclaimed, "It's him, sure enough-Deil o' the like o' that ever saw!"

At the sound of "Mr. Dinmont and Colonel Mannering wanted to speak to you, sir," Pleydell turned his head, and blushed a little when he saw the very genteel figure of the English stranger. He was, however, of the opinion of Falstaff, "Out, ye villains, play out the play!" wisely judging it the better way to appear totally unconcerned. "Where be our guards?" exclaimed this second Justinian; "see ye not a stranger knight from foreign parts arrived at this our court of Holyrood—with our bold yeoman Andrew Dinmont, who has succeeded to the keeping of our royal flocks within the forest of Jedwood, where, thanks to our royal care in the administration of justice, they feed as safe as if they were within the bounds of Fife? Where be our heralds, our pursuivants, our Lyon, our Marchmount, our Carrick, and our Snowdown? Let the strangers be placed at our board, and regaled as beseemeth their quality, and this our high holiday—to-morrow we will hear their tidings."

"So please you, my liege, to-morrow's Sunday," said one of the company.

"Sunday, is it? then we will give no offence to the assembly of the kirk—on Monday shall be. their audience."

Mannering, who had stood at first uncertain whether to advance or retreat, now resolved to enter for the moment into the whim of the scene, though internally fretting at Mac-Morlan for sending him to consult with a crack-brained humorist. He therefore advanced with three profound congees, and craved permission to lay his credentials at the feet of the Scottish monarch, in order to be perused at his best leisure. The gravity with which he accommodated himself to the humour of the moment, and the deep and humble inclination with which he at first declined, and then accepted, a seat presented by the master of the ceremonies, procured him three rounds of applause.

"Deil hae me, if they arena a' mad thegither!" said Dinmont, occupying with less ceremony a seat at the bottom of the table, "or else they hae taen Yule before it comes, and are gaun a-guisarding."

A large glass of claret was offered to Mannering, who drank it to the health of the reigning prince. "You are, I presume to guess," said the monarch, "that celebrated Sir Miles Mannering, so renowned in the French wars, and may well pronounce to us if the wines of Gascony lose their flavour in our more northern realm."

Mannering, agreeably flattered by this allusion to the fame of his celebrated ancestor, replied, by professing himself only a distant relation of the preux chevalier, and added, "that in his opinion the wine was superlatively good."

"It's owre cauld for my stamach," said Dinmont, setting down the glass (empty, however).

"We will correct that quality," answered King Paulus, the first of the name; "we have not forgotten that the moist and humid air of our valley of Liddel inclines to stronger potations.—Seneschal, let our faithful yeoman have a cup of brandy; it will be more germain to the matter."

"And now," said Mannering, "since we have unwarily intruded upon your majesty at a moment of mirthful retirement, be pleased to say when you will indulge a stranger with an audience on those affairs of weight which have brought him to your northern capital."

The monarch opened Mac-Morlan's letter, and, running it hastily over, exclaimed, with his natural voice and. manner, "Lucy Bertram of Ellangowan, poor dear lassie!"

"A forfeit! a forfeit!" exclaimed a dozen voices; his majesty has forgot his kingly character."

"Not a whit! not a whit!" replied the king; "I'll be judged by this courteous knight. May not a monarch love a maid of low degree? Is not King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid, an adjudged case in point?"

"Professional! professional!—another forfeit," exclaimed the tumultuary nobility.

"Had not our royal predecessors," continued the monarch, exalting his sovereign voice to drown these disaffected clamours,—"Had they not their Jean Logies, their Bessie Carmichaels, their Oliphants, their Sandilands, and their Weirs, and shall it be denied to us even to name a maiden whom we delight to honour? Nay, then, sink state and perish sovereignty! for, like a second Charles V., we will abdicate, and seek in the private shades of life those pleasures which are denied to a throne."

So saying, he flung away his crown, and sprung from his exalted station with more agility than could have been expected from his age, ordered lights and a wash-hand basin and towel, with a cup of green tea, into another room, and made a sign to Mannering to accompany him. In less than two minutes he washed his face and hands, settled his wig in the glass, and, to Mannering's great surprise, looked quite a different man from the childish Bacchanal he bad seen a moment before.

"There are folks," he said, "Mr. Mannering, before whom one should take care how they play the fool—because they have either too much malice, or too little wit, as the poet says. The best compliment I can pay Colonel Mannering, is to show I am not ashamed to expose myself before him—and truly I think it is a compliment I have not spared to-night on your good-nature.—But what's that great strong fellow wanting?"

Dinmont, who had pushed after Mannering into the room, began with a scrape with his foot and a scratch of his head in unison. "I am Dandie Dinmont, sir, of the Charlies-hope—the Liddesdale lad—ye'll mind me?—it was for me ye won yon grand plea."

"What plea, you loggerhead" said the lawyer "d'ye think I can remember all the fools that come to plague me?"

"Lord, sir, it was the grand plea about the grazing o' the Langtae Head!" said the farmer.

"Well, curse thee, never mind; give me the memorial [*The Scottish memorial corresponds to the English brief.] and come to me on Monday at ten," replied the learned counsel.

"But, sir, I haena got ony distinct memorial."

"No memorial, man?" said Pleydell.

"Na, sir, nae memorial," answered Dandie "for your honour said before, Mr. Pleydell, ye'll mind, that ye liked best to bear us hill-folk tell our ain tale by word o' mounts"

"Beshrew my tongue that said so!" answered the counsellor; "it will cost my ears a dinning.—Well, say in two words what you've got to say—you see the gentleman waits."

"Ou, sir, if the gentleman likes he may play his ain spring first; it's a' ane to Dandie."

"Now, you looby," said the lawyer, "cannot you conceive that your business can be nothing to Colonel Mannering, but that he may not choose to have these great ears of thine regaled with his matters?"

"Aweel, sir, just as you and he like—so ye see to my business," said Dandie, not a whit disconcerted by the roughness of this reception. "We're at the auld wark o' the marches again, Jock o' Dawston Cleugh and me. Ye see we march on the tap o' Touthop Rigg after we pass the Pomoragrains; for the Pomoragrains, and Slackenspool, and Bloodylaws, they come in there, and they belang to the Peel; but after ye pass Pomoragrains at a muckle great saucer-headed cutlugged stane, that they ca' Charlie's Chuckie, there Dawston Cleugh and Charlies-hope they march. Now, I say, the march rins on the tap o' the hill where the wind and water shears; but Jock o' Dawston Cleugh again, he contravenes that, and says, that it hauds down by the auld drove-road that gaes awa by the Knot o' the Gate ower to Keeldar Ward—and that makes an unco [*Uncommon ] difference."

"And what difference does it make, friend?" said Pleydell. "How many sheep will it feed?"

"Ou, no mony," said Dandie, scratching his head, it's lying high and exposed—it may feed a hog, or aiblins [*Perhaps ] twa in a good year."

"And for this grazing, which may be worth about five shillings a year, you are willing to throw away a hundred pound or two?"

"Na, sir, it's no for the value of the grass," replied Dinmont; "it's for justice."

"My good friend," said Pleydell, "justice, like charity, should begin at home. Do you justice to your wife and family, and think no more about-the matter."

Dinmont still lingered, twisting his hat in his hand-" It's no for that, sir—but I would like ill to be bragged wi' him—he threeps [*Declares ] he'll bring a score o' witnesses and mair—and I'm sure there's as mony will swear for me as for him, folk that lived a' their days upon the Charlies-hope, and wadna like to see the land lose its right."

"Zounds, man, if it be a point of honour," said the lawyer, "why don't your landlords take it up?"

"I dinna ken, sir" (scratching his head again), "there's been nae election-dusts lately, and the lairds are unco neighbourly, and Jock and me canna get them to yoke thegither about it a' that we can say—but if ye thought we might keep up the rent—"

"No! no! that will never do," said Pleydell,—"confound you, why don't you take good cudgels and settle it?"

"Odd, sir," answered the farmer, "we tried that three times already—that's twice on the land add ance at Lockerby fair.—But I dinna ken—we're baith gey good at single-stick, and it couldna weel be judged."

"Then take broadswords, and be d-d to you, as your fathers did before you," said the counsel learned in the law.

"Aweel, sir, if ye think it wadna be again the law, it's a' ane to Dandie."

"Hold! Hold!" exclaimed Pleydell, "we shall have another Lord Soulis' mistake—Pr'ythee, man, comprehend me; I wish you to consider how very trifling and foolish a lawsuit you wish to engage in."

"Ay, sir?" said Dandie, in a disappointed tone. "So ye winna take on wi' me, I'm doubting?"

"Me! not I—go home, go home, take a pint and agree." Dandie looked but half contented, and still remained stationary. "Anything more, my friend?"

"Only, sir, about the succession of this leddy that's dead, auld Miss Margaret Bertram o' Singleside."

"Ay, what about her?" said the counsellor, rather surprised.

"Ou, we have nae connection at a' wi' the Bertrams," said Dandie,—"they were grand folk by the like o' us.—But Jean Liltup, that was auld Singleside's housekeeper, and the mother of these twa young ladies that are gane—the last o' them's dead at a ripe age, I trow—Jean Liltup came out o' Liddel water, and she was as near our connection as second cousin to my mother's half-sister—She drew up wi' Singleside, nae doubt, when she was his housekeeper, and it was a sair vex and grief to a' her kith and kin. But he acknowledged a marriage, and satisfied the kirk—and now I wad ken frae you if we hae not some claim by law?"

"Not the shadow of a claim."

"Aweel, we're nae puirer," said Dandie,—"but she may hae thought on us if she was minded to make a testament.—Weel, sir, I've said my say—I'se e'en wish you good-night, and—"putting his hand in his pocket.

"No, no, my friend; I never take fees on Saturday nights, or without a memorial—away with you, Dandie." And Dandie made his reverence, and departed accordingly.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

But this poor farce has neither truth, nor art, To please the fancy or to touch the heart. Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean, With anxious bustle moves the cumbrous scene, Presents no objects tender or profound, But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around. Parish Register.

"Your majesty," said Mannering, laughing, "has solemnised your abdication by an act of mercy and charity—That fellow will scarce think of going to law."

"Oh, you are quite wrong," said the experienced lawyer. "The only difference is, I have lost my client and my fee. He'll never rest till he finds somebody to encourage him to commit the folly he has predetermined—No! no! I have only shown you another weakness of my character—I always speak truth of a Saturday night."

"And sometimes through the week, I should think," said Mannering, continuing the same tone.

"Why, yes; as far as my vocation will permit. I am, as Hamlet says, indifferent honest, when my clients and their solicitors do not make me the medium of conveying their double-distilled lies to the bench. But oportet vivere! it is a sad thing.—And now to our business. I am glad my old friend MacMorlan has sent you to me; he is an active, honest, and intelligent man, long Sheriff-substitute of the county of—under me, and still holds the office. He knows I have a regard for that unfortunate family of Ellangowan, and for poor Lucy. I have not seen her since she was twelve years old, and she was then a sweet pretty girl under the management of a very silly father. But my interest in her is of an early date. I was called upon, Mr. Mannering, being then Sheriff of that county, to investigate the particulars of a murder which had been committed near Ellangowan the day on which this poor child was born; and which, by a strange combination that I was unhappily not able to trace, involved the death or abstraction of her only brother, a boy of about five years old. No, Colonel, I shall never forget the misery of the house of Ellangowan that morning!—the father half distracted—the mother dead in premature travail—the helpless infant, with scarce any one to attend it, coming wawling and crying into this miserable world at such a moment of unutterable misery. We lawyers are not of iron, sir, or of brass, any more than you soldiers are of steel. We are conversant with the crimes and distresses of civil society, as you are with those that occur in a state of war, and to do our duty in either case a little apathy is perhaps necessary—But the devil take a soldier whose heart can be as hard as his sword, and his dam catch the lawyer who bronzes his bosom instead of his forehead!—But come, I am losing my Saturday at e'en—will you have the kindness to trust me with these papers which relate to Miss Bertram's business? — and stay—to-morrow you'll take a bachelor's dinner with an old lawyer,—I insist upon it, at three precisely—and come an hour sooner.—The old lady is to be buried on Monday; it is the orphan's cause, and we'll borrow an hour from the Sunday to talk over this business—although I fear nothing can be done if she has altered her settlement—unless perhaps it occurs within the sixty days, and then if Miss Bertram can show that she possesses the character of heir-at-law, why—

"But, hark! my lieges are impatient of their inter-regnum—I do not invite you to rejoin us, Colonel; it would be a trespass on your complaisance, unless you had begun the day with us, and gradually glided on front wisdom to mirth, and from mirth to—to—to—extravagance.—Good-night-Harry, go home with Mr. Mannering to his lodging-Colonel, I expect you at a little past two to-morrow."

The Colonel returned to his inn, equally surprised at the childish frolics in which he had found his learned counsellor engaged, at the candour and sound sense which he had in a moment summoned up to meet the exigencies of his profession, and at the tone of feeling which he displayed when he spoke of the friendless orphan.

In the morning, while the Colonel and his most quiet and silent of all retainers, Dominie Sampson, were finishing the breakfast which Barnes had made and poured out, after the Dominie had scalded himself in the attempt, Mr. Pleydell was suddenly ushered in. A nicely dressed bob-wig, upon every hair of which a zealous and careful barber had bestowed its proper allowance of powder; a well-brushed black suit, with very clean shoes and gold buckles and stock-buckle; a manner rather reserved and formal than intrusive, but, withal, showing only the formality of manner, by no means that of awkwardness; a countenance, the expressive and somewhat comic features of which were in complete repose,—all showed a being perfectly different from the choice spirit of the evening before. A glance of shrewd and piercing fire in his eye was the only marked expression which recalled the man of "Saturday at e'en."

"I am come," said he, with a very polite address, "to use my regal authority in your behalf in spirituals as well as temporals—can I accompany you to the Presbyterian kirk, or Episcopal meeting-house?—Tros Tyriusve" a lawyer, you know, is of both religions, or rather I should say of both forms—or can I assist in passing the forenoon otherwise? You'll excuse my old-fashioned importunity—I was born in a time when a Scotchman was thought inhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment, except when he slept—but I trust you will tell me at once if I intrude."

"Not at all, my dear sir," answered Colonel Mannering—"I am delighted to put myself under your pilotage. I should wish much to hear some of your Scottish preachers whose talents have done such honour to your country—your Blair, your Robertson, or your Henry; and I embrace—your kind offer with all my heart.—Only," drawing the lawyer a little aside, and turning his eye towards Sampson, "my worthy friend there in the reverie is a little helpless and abstracted, and my servant, Barnes, who is his pilot in ordinary, cannot well assist him here, especially as he has expressed his determination of going to some of your darker and more remote places of worship."

The lawyer's eye glanced at Dominie Sampson. "A curiosity worth preserving—and I'll find you a fit custodier.—Here you, sir (to the waiter), go to Luckie Finlayson's in the Cowgate for Miles Macfin the cadie, he'll be there about this time, and tell him I wish to speak to him."

The person wanted soon arrived. "I will commit your friend to this man's charge," said Pleydell; "he'll attend him, or conduct him, wherever he chooses to go, with a happy indifference as to kirk or market, meeting or court of justice, or any other place whatever—and bring him safe home at whatever hour you appoint; so that Mr. Barnes there may be left to the freedom of his own will."

This was easily arranged, and the Colonel committed the Dominie to the charge of this man while they should remain in Edinburgh.

"And now, sir, if you please, we shall go to the Greyfriars church, to hear our historian of Scotland, of the Continent, and of America."

They were disappointed—he did not preach that morning.—"Never mind," said the counsellor, "I have a moment's patience, and we shall do very well."

The colleague of Dr. Robertson ascended the pulpit. [*This was the celebrated Dr. Rescan, a distinguished clergyman. and a most excellent man. ] His external appearance was not prepossessing. A remarkably fair complexion, strangely contrasted with a black wig without a grain of powder; a narrow chest and a stooping posture; hands which, placed like props on either side of the pulpit, seemed necessary rather to support the person than to assist the gesticulation of the preacher,—no gown, not even that of Geneva, a tumbled band, and a gesture which seemed scarce voluntary, were the first circumstances which struck a stranger. "The preacher seems a very ungainly person," whispered Mannering to his new friend.

"Never fear; he's the son of an excellent Scottish lawyer [*The father of Dr. Erskine was an eminent lawyer, and his Institutes of the Law of Scotland are to this day the text-hook of students of that science.]—he'll show blood, I'll warrant him."

The learned counsellor predicted truly. A lecture was delivered, fraught with new, striking, and entertaining views of Scripture history—a sermon, in which the Calvinism of the Kirk of Scotland was ably supported, yet made the basis of a sound system of practical morals, which should neither shelter the sinner under the cloak of speculative faith or of peculiarity of opinion, nor leave him loose to the waves of unbelief and schism. Something there was of an antiquated turn of argument and metaphor, but it only served to give zest and peculiarity to the style of elocution. The sermon was not read—a scrap of paper containing the heads of the discourse was occasionally referred to, and the enunciation, which at first seemed imperfect and embarrassed, became, as the preacher warmed in his progress, animated and distinct, and although the discourse could not be quoted as a correct specimen of pulpit eloquence, yet Mannering had seldom heard so much learning, metaphysical acuteness, and energy of argument, brought into the service of Christianity.

"Such," he said, going out of the church, "must have been the preachers, to whose uncaring minds, and acute, though sometimes rudely exercised talents, we own the Reformation."

"And yet that reverend gentleman," said Pleydell, "whom I love for his father's sake and his own, has nothing of the sour or pharisaical pride which has been imputed to some of the early fathers of the Calvinistic Kirk of Scotland. His colleague and he differ, and head different parties in the kirk, about particular points of church discipline; but without for a moment losing personal regard or respect for each other, or suffering malignity to interfere in an opposition, steady, constant, and apparently conscientious on both sides."

"And you, Mr. Pleydell, what do you think of their points of difference?"

"Why, I hope, Colonel, a plain man may go to heaven without thinking about them at all—besides, inter nos, I am a member of the suffering and Episcopal Church of Scotland—the shadow of a shade now, and fortunately so—but I love to pray where my fathers prayed before me, without thinking worse of the Presbyterian forms, because they do not affect me with the same associations." And with this remark they parted until dinner-time.

From the awkward access to the lawyer's mansion, Mannering was induced to form very moderate expectations of the entertainment which he was to receive. The approach looked even more dismal by daylight than on the preceding evening. The houses on each side of the lane were so close, that the neighbours might have shaken hands with each other from the different sides, and occasionally the space between was traversed by wooden galleries, and thus entirely closed up. The stair, the scale-stair, was not well cleaned; and on entering the house, Mannering was struck with the narrowness and meanness of the wainscotted passage. But the library, into which he was shown by an elderly respectable looking man-servant, was a complete contrast to these unpromising appearances. It was a well-proportioned room, hung with a portrait or two of Scottish characters of eminence, by Jamieson, the Caledonian Vandyke, and surrounded with books, the best editions of the best authors, and, in particular, an admirable collection of classics.

"These," said Pleydell, "are my tools of trade. A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect."

But Mannering was chiefly delighted with the view from the windows, which commanded that incomparable prospect of the ground between Edinburgh and the sea; the Firth of Forth, with its islands; the embayment which is terminated by the Law of North Berwick; and the varied shores of Fife to the northward, indenting with a hilly outline the clear blue horizon.

When Mr. Pleydell had sufficiently enjoyed the surprise of his guest, he called his attention to Miss Bertram's affairs. "I was in hopes," he said, "though but faint, to have discovered some means of ascertaining her indefeasible right to this property of Singleside; but my researches have been in vain. The old lady was certainly absolute fiar, and might dispose of it in full right of property. All that we have to hope is, that the devil may not have tempted her to alter this very proper settlement. You must attend the old girl's funeral to-morrow, to which you will receive an invitation, for I have acquainted her agent with your being here on Miss Bertram's part; and I will meet you afterwards at the house she inhabited, and be present to see fair play at the opening of the settlement. The old cat had a little girl, the orphan of some relation, who lived with her as a kind of slavish companion. I hope she has had the conscience to make her independent, in consideration of the peine forte et dure to which she subjected her during her lifetime."

Three gentlemen now appeared, and were introduced to the stranger. They were men of good sense, gaiety, and general information, so that the day passed very pleasantly over; and Colonel Mannering assisted, about eight o'clock at night, in discussing the landlord's bottle, which was, of course, a magnum. Upon his return to the inn, he found a card inviting him to the funeral of Miss Margaret Bertram, late of Singleside, which was to proceed from her own house to the place of interment in the Greyfriars churchyard, at one o'clock afternoon.

At the appointed hour, Mannering went to a small house in the suburbs to the southward of the city, where he found the place of mourning, indicated, as usual in Scotland, by two rueful figures with long black cloaks, white crapes and hatbands, holding in their hands poles, adorned with melancholy streamers of the same description. By two other mutes, who, from their visages, seemed suffering under the pressure of some strange calamity, he was ushered into the dining-parlour of the defunct, where the company were assembled for the funeral.

In Scotland, the custom, now disused in England, of inviting the relations of the deceased to the interment, is universally retained. On many occasions this has a singular and striking effect, but it degenerates into mere empty form and grimace, in cases where the defunct has had the misfortune to live unbeloved and die unlamented. The English service for the dead, one of the most beautiful and impressive parts of the ritual of the church, would have, in such cases, the effect of fixing the attention, and uniting the thoughts and feelings of the audience present, in an exercise of devotion so peculiarly adapted to such an occasion. But according to the Scottish custom, if there be not real feeling among the assistants, there is nothing to supply the deficiency, and exalt or rouse the attention; so that a sense of tedious form, and almost hypocritical restraint, is too apt to pervade the company assembled for the mournful solemnity. Mrs. Margaret Bertram was unluckily one of those whose good qualities had attached no general friendship. She had no near relations who might have mourned from natural affection, and therefore her funeral exhibited merely the exterior trappings of sorrow.

Mannering, therefore, stood among this lugubrious company of cousins in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth degree, composing his countenance to the decent solemnity of all who were around him, and looking as much concerned on Mrs. Margaret Bertram's account, as if the deceased lady of Singleside had been his own sister or mother. After a deep and awful pause, the company began to talk aside under their breaths, however, and as if in the chamber of a dying person.

"Our poor friend," said one grave gentleman, scarcely opening his mouth, for fear of deranging the necessary solemnity of his features, and sliding his whisper from between his lips, which were as little unclosed as possible,—"Our poor friend has died well to pass in the world."

"Nae doubt," answered the person addressed, with half-closed eyes; "poor Mrs. Margaret was aye careful of the gear."

"Any news to-day, Colonel Mannering?" said one of the gentlemen whom he had dined with the day before, but in a tone which might, for its impressive gravity, have communicated the death of his whole generation.

"Nothing particular, I believe, sir," said Mannering, in the cadence which was, he observed, appropriated to the house of mourning.

"I understand," continued the first speaker emphatically, and with the air of one who is well informed—"I understand there is a settlement."

"And what does little Jenny Gibson get?"

"A hundred, and the auld repeater."

"That's but sma' gear, puir thing; she had a sair time o't with the auld leddy. But it's ill waiting for deadfolk's shoon."

"I am afraid," said the politician, who was close by Mannering," we have not done with your old friend Tippoo Saib yet—I doubt he'll give the Company more plague; and I am told, but you'll know for certain that East India Stock is not rising."

"I trust it will, sir, soon."

"Mrs. Margaret," said another person, mingling in the conversation, "had some India bonds. I know that, for I drew the interest for her—it would be desirable now for the trustees and legatees to have the Colonel's advice about the time and mode of converting them into money. For my part I think—But there's Mr. Mortcloke to tell us they are gaun to lift."

Mr. Mortcloke the undertaker did accordingly, with a visage of professional length and most grievous solemnity, distribute among the pall-bearers little cards, assigning their respective situations in attendance upon the coffin. As this precedence is supposed to be regulated by propinquity to the defunct, the undertaker, however skilful a master of these lugubrious ceremonies, did not escape giving some offence. To be related to Mrs. Bertram was to be of kin to the lands of Singleside, and was a propinquity of which each relative present at that moment was particularly jealous. Some murmurs there were on the occasion, and our friend Dinmont gave more open offence, being unable either to repress his discontent, or to utter it in the key properly modulated to the solemnity. "I think ye might hae at least gi'en me a leg o' her to carry," he exclaimed, in a voice considerably louder than propriety admitted; "God! an it hadna been for the rigs o' land, I would hae gotten her a' to carry mysell, for as mony gentles as are here."

A score of frowning and reproving brows were bent upon the unappalled yeoman, who, having given vent to his displeasure, stalked sturdily downstairs with the rest of the company, totally disregarding the censures of those whom his remarks had scandalised.

And then the funeral pomp set forth; saulies with their batons, and gumphions of tarnished white crape, in honour of the well-preserved maiden fame of Mrs. Margaret Bertram. Six starved horses, themselves the very emblems of mortality, well cloaked and plumed, lugging along the hearse with its dismal emblazonry, crept in slow state towards the place of interment, preceded by Jamie Duff, an idiot, who, with weepers and cravat made of white paper, attended on every funeral, and followed by six mourning coaches, filled with the company. Many of these now gave more free loose to their tongues, and discussed with unrestrained earnestness the amount of the succession, and the probability of its destination. The principal expectants, however, kept a prudent silence, indeed, ashamed to express hopes which might prove fallacious; and the agent, or man of business, who alone knew exactly how matters stood, maintained a countenance of mysterious importance, as if determined to preserve the full interest of anxiety and suspense.

At length they arrived at the churchyard gates, and from thence, amid the gaping of two or three dozen of idle women with infants in their arms, and accompanied by some twenty children, who ran gambolling and screaming alongside of the sable procession, they finally arrived at the burial-place of the Singleside family. This was a square enclosure in the Greyfriars churchyard, guarded on one side by a veteran angel, without a nose, and having only one wing, who had the merit of having maintained his post for a century, while his comrade cherub, who had stood sentinel on the corresponding pedestal, lay a broken trunk among the hemlock, burdock, and nettles, which grew in gigantic luxuriance around the walls of the mausoleum. A moss-grown and broken inscription informed the reader, that in the Year 1650 Captain Andrew Bertram, first of Singleside, descended of the very ancient and honourable house of Ellangowan, had caused this monument to be erected for himself and his descendants. A reasonable number of scythes and hour-glasses, and death's heads, and cross-bones, garnished the following sprig of sepulchral poetry, to the memory of the founder of the mausoleum;—

Nathaniel's heart, Bezaleel's hand. If ever any had, These boldly do I say had he, Who lieth in this bed.

Here then, amid the deep black fat loam into which her ancestors were now resolved, they deposited the body of Mrs. Margaret Bertram; and 'like soldiers returning from a military funeral, the nearest relations who might be interested in the settlements of the lady, urged the dog-cattle of the hackney coaches to all the speed of which they were capable, in order to put an end to further suspense on that interesting topic.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Die and endow a college or a cat Pope

There is a fable told by Lucian, that while a troop of monkeys, well drilled by an intelligent manager, were performing a tragedy with great applause, the decorum of the whole scene was at once destroyed, and the natural passions of the actors called forth into very indecent and active emulation, by a wag who threw a handful of nuts upon the stage. In like manner, the approaching crisis stirred up among the expectants feelings of a nature very different from those, of which, under the superintendence of Mr. Mortcloke, they had but now been endeavouring to imitate the expression. Those eyes which were lately devoutly cast up to heaven, or with greater humility bent solemnly upon earth, were now sharply and alertly darting their glances through shuttles, and trunks, and drawers, and cabinets, and all the odd corners of an old maiden lady's repositories. Nor was their search without interest, though they did not find the will of which they were in quest.

Here was a promissory note for 20L by the minister of the nonjuring chapel. interest marked as paid to Martinmas last, carefully folded up in a new set of words to the old tune of "Over the Water to Charlie".—there, was a curious love correspondence between the deceased and a certain Lieutenant O'Kean of a marching regiment of foot; and tied up with the letters was a document, which at once explained to the relatives why a connection that boded them little good had been suddenly broken off, being the Lieutenant's bond for two hundred pounds upon which no interest whatever appeared to have been paid. Other bills and bonds to a larger amount, and signed by better names (I mean commercially) than those of the worthy divine and gallant soldier, also occurred in the course of their researches, besides a hoard of coins of every size and denomination, and scraps of broken gold and silver, old earrings, hinges of cracked snuff-boxes, mounting of spectacles, etc., etc., etc. Still no will made its appearance, and Colonel Mannering began full well to hope that the settlement which he had obtained from Glossin contained the ultimate arrangement of the old lady's affairs. But his friend Pleydell, who now came into the room, cautioned him against entertaining this belief.

"I am well acquainted with the gentleman," he said, "who is conducting the search, and I guess from his manner that he knows something more of the matter than any of us." Meantime, while the search proceeds, let us take a brief glance at one or two of the company, who seem most interested.

Of Dinmont, who, with his large hunting-whip under his arm, stood poking his great round face over the shoulder of the homme d'affaires, it is unnecessary to say anything. That thin-looking oldish person, in a most correct and gentleman-like suit of mourning is Mac-Casquil, formerly of Drumquag, who was ruined by having a legacy bequeathed to him of two shares in the Ayr bank. His hopes on the present occasion are founded on a very distant relationship, upon his sitting in the same pew with the deceased every Sunday, and upon his playing at cribbage with her regularly on the Saturday evenings—taking great care never to come off a winner. That other coarse-looking man, wearing his own greasy hair tied in a leathern cue more greasy still, is a tobacconist, a relation of Mrs. Bertram's mother, who, having a good stock in trade when the colonial war broke out, trebled the price of his commodity to all the world, Mrs. Bertram alone excepted, whose tortoiseshell snuff-box was weekly filled with the best rappee at the old prices, because the maid brought it to the shop with Mrs. Bertram's respects to her cousin Mr. Quid. That young fellow, who has not had the decency to put off his boots and buckskins, might have stood as forward as most of them in the graces of the old lady, who loved to look upon a comely young man; but it is thought he has forfeited the moment of fortune, by sometimes neglecting her tea-table when solemnly invited; sometimes appearing there, when he had been dining with blither company; twice treading upon her cat's tail, and once affronting her parrot.

To Mannering, the most interesting of the group was the poor girl, who had been a sort of humble companion of the deceased, as a subject upon whom she could at all times expectorate her bad humour. She was for form's sake dragged into the room by the deceased's favourite female attendant, where, shrinking into a corner as soon as possible, she saw with wonder and affright the intrusive researches of the strangers amongst those recesses to which from childhood she had looked with awful veneration. This girl was regarded with an unfavourable eye by, all the competitors, honest Dinmont only excepted; the rest conceived they should find in her a formidable competitor, whose claims might at least encumber and diminish their chance of succession. Yet she was the only person present who seemed really to feel sorrow for the deceased. Mrs. Bertram had been her protectress, although from selfish motives, and her capricious tyranny was forgotten at the moment while the tears followed each other fast down the cheeks of her frightened and friendless dependant. "There's ower muckle saut water there, Drumquag," said the tobacconist to the ex-proprietor, "to bode ither folk muckle gude. Folk seldom greet that gate but they ken what it's for. Mr. MacCasquil only replied with a nod, feeling the propriety of asserting his superior gentry in presence of Mr. Pleydell and Colonel Mannering.

"Very queer if there suld be nae will after a', friend," said Dinmont, who began to grow impatient, to the man of business.

"A moment's patience, it you please—she was a good and prudent woman, Mrs. Margaret Bertram—a good, and prudent and well-judging woman, and knew how to choose friends and depositories—she may have put her last will and testament, or rather her mortis causa settlement, as it relates to heritage, into the hands of some safe friend."

"I'll bet a rump and dozen," said Pleydell, whispering to the Colonel, "he has got it in his own pocket;"—then addressing the man of law, "Come, sir, we'll cut this short if you please-here is a settlement of the estate of Singleside, executed several years ago, in favour of Miss Lucy Bertram of Ellangowan—"The company stared fearfully wild. "You, I presume, Mr. Protocol, can inform us if there is a later deed?"

"Please to favour me, Mr. Pleydell;"—and so saying, he took the deed out of the learned counsel's hand, and glanced his eve over the contents.

"Too cool," said Pleydell, "too cool by half—he has another deed in his pocket still."

"Why does he not show it then, and be d-d to him!" said the military gentleman, whose patience began to wax threadbare.

"Why, how should I know?" answered the barrister,—"why does a cat not kill a mouse when she takes him?—the consciousness of power and the love of teasing, I suppose. —Well, Mr. Protocol, what say you to that deed?"

"Why, Mr. Pleydell, the deed is a well-drawn deed, properly authenticated and tested in forms of the statute."

"But recalled or superseded by another of posterior date in your possession, eh?" said the counsellor.

"Something of the sort, I confess, Mr. Pleydell," rejoined the man of business, producing a bundle tied with tape, and sealed at each fold and ligation with black wax. "That deed, Mr. Pleydell, which you produce and found upon, is dated 1st June 17—; but this"—breaking the seals and unfolding the document slowly—"is dated the 20th—no, I see it is the 21st, of April of this present year, being ten years posterior."

"Marry, hang her, brock!" said the counsellor, borrowing an exclamation from Sir Toby Belch, "just the month in which Ellangowan's distresses became generally public. But let us hear what she has done."

Mr. Protocol accordingly, having required silence, began to read the settlement aloud in a slow, steady, business—like tone. The group around, in whose eyes hope alternately awakened and faded, and who were straining their apprehensions to get at the drift of the testator's meaning through the mist of technical language in which the conveyance had involved it, might have made a study for Hogarth.

The deed was of an unexpected nature. It set forth with conveying and disposing all and whole the estate and lands of Singleside and others, with the lands of Loverless, Liealone, Spinster's Knowe, and heaven knows what beside, "to and in favours of (here the reader softened his voice to a gentle and modest piano) Peter Protocol, clerk to the signet, having the fullest confidence in his capacity and integrity—(these are the very words which my worthy deceased friend insisted upon my inserting)—But in TRUST always" (here the reader recovered his voice and style, and the visages of several of the bearers, which had attained a longitude that Mr. Mortcloke might have envied, were perceptibly shortened), "in TRUST always, and for the uses, ends, and purposes herein after-mentioned."

In these "uses, ends, and purposes," lay the cream of the affair. The first was introduced by a preamble setting forth, that the testatrix was lineally descended from the ancient house of Ellangowan, her respected great-grandfather, Andrew Bertram, first of Singleside, of happy memory, having been second son to Allan Bertram, fifteenth Baron of Ellangowan. It proceeded to state, that Henry Bertram, son and heir of Godfrey Bertram, now of Ellangowan, had been stolen from his parents in infancy, but that she, the testatrix, was well assured that he was yet alive in foreign parts, and by the providence of heaven would be restored to the possessions of his ancestors—in which case the said Peter Protocol was bound and obliged, like as he bound and obliged himself, by acceptance of these presents, to denude himself of the said lands of Singleside and others, and of all the other effects thereby conveyed (excepting always a proper gratification for his own trouble) to and in favour of the said Henry Bertram upon his return to his native country. And during the time of his residing in foreign parts, or in case of his never again returning to Scotland, Mr. Peter Protocol, the trustee, was directed to distribute the rents of the land, and the interest of the other funds (deducting always a proper gratification for his trouble in the premises), in equal portions, among four charitable establishments pointed out in the will. The power of management, of letting leases, of raising and lending out money, in short, the full authority of a proprietor, was vested in this confidential trustee, and, in the event of, his death, went to certain official persons named in the deed. There were only two legacies; one of a hundred pounds to a favourite waiting-maid, another of the like sum to Janet Gibson (whom the deed stated to have been supported by the charity of the testatrix) for the purpose of binding her an apprentice to some honest trade.

A settlement in mortmain is in Scotland termed a mortification, and in one great borough (Aberdeen, if I remember rightly) there is a municipal officer who takes care of these public endowments, and is thence called the Master of Mortifications. One would almost presume that the term had its origin in the effect which such settlements usually produce upon the kinsmen of those by whom they are executed. Heavy at least was the mortification which befell the audience, who, in the late Mrs. Margaret Bertram's parlour, had listened to this unexpected destination of the lands of Singleside. There was a profound silence after the deed had been read over.

Mr. Pleydell was the first to speak. He begged to look at the deed, and having satisfied himself that it was correctly drawn and executed, he returned it without any observation, only saying aside to Mannering, "Protocol is not worse than other people, I believe; but this old lady has determined that, if he do not turn rogue, it shall not be for want of temptation."

"I really think," said Mr. Mac-Casquil of Drumquag, who, having gulped down one half of his vexation, determined to give vent to the rest, "I really think this is an extraordinary case! I should like now to know from Mr. Protocol, who, being sole and unlimited trustee, must have been consulted upon this occasion; I should like, I say, to know, how Mrs. Bertram could possibly believe in the existence of a boy, that a' the world kens was murdered many a year since?"

"Really, sir," said Mr. Protocol, "I do not conceive it is possible for me to explain her motives more than she has done herself. Our excellent deceased friend was a good woman, sir—a pious woman—and might have grounds for confidence in the boy's safety which are not accessible to us, sir."

"Hout," said the tobacconist, "I ken very weel what were her grounds for confidence. There's Mrs. Rebecca (the maid) sitting there, has tell'd me a hundred times in my ain shop, there was nae kenning how her leddy wad settle her affairs, for an auld gipsy witch wife at Gilsland had possessed her with a notion, that the callant—Harry Bertram ca's she him?—would come alive again some day after a'—ye'll no deny that, Mrs. Rebecca?—though I dare to say ye forgot to put your mistress in mind of what ye promised to say when I gied ye mony a half-crown—But ye'll no deny what I am saying now, lass?"

"I ken naething at a' about it," answered Rebecca doggedly, and looking straight forward with the firm countenance of one not disposed to be compelled to remember more than was agreeable to her.

"Weel said, Rebecca! ye're satisfied wi' your ain share ony way," rejoined the tobacconist.

The buck of the second-head, for a buck of the first-head he was not, had hitherto been slapping his boots with his switch-whip, and looking like a spoiled child that has lost its supper. His murmurs, however, were all vented inwardly, or at most in a soliloquy such as this—"I am sorry, by G-d, I ever plagued myself about her—I came here, by G-d, one night to drink tea, and I left King, and the Duke's rider, Will Hack. They were toasting a round of running horses; by G-d, I might have got leave to wear the jacket as well as other folk, if I had carried it on with them— and she has not so much as left me that hundred!"

"We'll make the payment of the note quite agreeable," said Mr. Protocol, who had no wish to increase at that moment the odium attached to his office—"and now, gentlemen, I fancy we have no more to wait for here, and—I shall put the settlement of my excellent and worthy friend on record to-morrow, that every gentleman may examine the contents, and have free access to take an extract; and"—he proceeded to lock up the repositories of the deceased with more speed than he had opened them—"Mrs. Rebecca, ye'll be so kind as to keep all right here until we can let the house—I had an offer from a tenant this morning, if such a thing should be, and if I was to have any management."

Our friend Dinmont, having had his hopes as well as another, had hitherto sat sulky enough in the armchair formerly appropriated to the deceased, and in which she would have been not a little scandalised to have seen this colossal specimen of the masculine gender lolling at length. His employment had been rolling up, into the form of a coiled snake, the long lash of his horsewhip, and then by a jerk causing it to unroll itself into the middle of the floor. The first words he said when he had digested the shock, contained a magnanimous declaration, which he probably was not conscious of having uttered aloud—"Weel-blude's thicker than water—she's welcome to the cheeses and the hams just the same." But when the trustee had made the above-mentioned motion for the mourners to depart, and talked of the house being immediately let, honest Dinmont got upon his feet, and stunned the company with this blunt question, "And what's to come o' this poor lassie then, Jenny Gibson? Sae mony o' us as thought oursells sib to the family when the gear was parting, we may do something for her amang us surely."

This proposal seemed to dispose most of the assembly instantly to evacuate the premises, although upon Mr. Protcol's motion they had lingered as if around the grave of their disappointed hopes. Drumquag said, or rather muttered, something of having a family of his own, and took precedence, in virtue of his gentle blood, to depart as fast as possible. The tobacconist sturdily stood forward, and scouted the motion—"A little huzzie, like that, was weel eneugh provided for already; and Mr. Protocol at ony rate was the proper person to take direction of her, as he had charge of her legacy;" and after uttering such his opinion in a steady and decisive tone of voice, he also left the place. The buck made a stupid and brutal attempt at a jest upon Mrs. Bertram's recommendation that the poor girl should be taught some honest trade; but encountered a scowl from Colonel Mannering's darkening eye (to whom, in his ignorance of the tone of good society, he had looked for applause) that made him ache to the very backbone. He shuffled downstairs, therefore, as fast as possible.

Protocol, who was really a good sort of man, next expressed his intention to take a temporary charge of the young lady, under protest always, that his so doing should be considered as merely eleemosynary; when Dinmont at length got up, and, having shaken his huge dreadnought greatcoat, as a Newfoundland dog does his shaggy hide when he comes out of the water, ejaculated, "Weel, deil hae me then, if ye hae ony fash [*Trouble] wi' her, Mr. Protocol, if she likes to gang hame wi' me, that is. Ye see, Ailie and me we're weel to pass, and we would like the lassies to hae a wee bit mair lair than oursells, and to be neighbour-like—that wad we. —And ye see Jenny canna miss but to ken manners, and the like o' reading books, and sewing seams—having lived sae lang wi' a grand lady like Lady Singleside; or if she disna ken onything about it, I'm jealous that our bairns will like her a' the better. And I'll take care o' the bits o' claes, and what spending siller she maun hae, so the—hundred pound may rin on in your hands, Mr. Protocol, and I'll be adding something till't, till she'll maybe get a Liddesdale joe that wants something to help to buy the hirsel. [*The stock of sheep]—What d'ye say to that, hinny? I'll take out a ticket for ye in the fly to Jethart—odd, but ye maun take a powny after that o'er the Limestane-rig—deil a wheeled carriage ever gaed into Liddesdale. [*The roads of Liddesdale, in Dandie Dinmont's days, could not he said to exist, and the district was only accessible through a succession of tremendous morasses. About thirty years ago, the author himself was the first person who ever drove a little open carriage into these wilds: the excellent roads by which they are now traversed being then in some progress. The people stared with no small wonder at a sight which many of them had never witnessed in their lives before. ]—And I'll be very glad if Mrs. Rebecca comes wi' you, hinny, and stays a month or twa while ye're stranger like."

While Mrs. Rebecca was curtseying, and endeavouring to make the poor orphan girl curtsey instead of crying, and while Dandie, in his rough way, was encouraging them both, old Pleydell had recourse to his snuff-box. It's meat and drink to me, now, Colonel," he said, as he recovered himself, "to see a clown like this—I must gratify him in his own way,—must assist him to ruin himself—there's no help for it. Here, you Liddesdale—Dandie—Charlies-hope-what do they call you?"

The farmer turned, infinitely gratified even by this sort of notice; for in his heart, next to his own landlord, he honoured a lawyer in high practice.

"So you will not be advised against trying that question about your marches?"

"No—no, sir—naebody likes to lose their right, and to be laughed at down the haill water. But since your honour's no agreeable, and is maybe a friend to the other side like, we maun try some other advocate."

"There—I told you so, Colonel Mannering!—Well, sir, if you must needs be a fool, the business is to give you the luxury of a lawsuit at the least possible expense, and to bring you off conqueror if possible. Let Mr. Protocol send me your papers, and I will advise him how to conduct your cause. I don't see, after all, why you should not have your lawsuits too, and your feuds in the Court of Session, as well as your forefathers had their manslaughters and fire-raisings."

"Very natural, to be sure, sir. We wad just take the auld gate as readily, if it werena for the law. And as the law binds us, the law should loose us. Besides, a, man's aye the better thought o' in out country for having been afore the Feifteen."

"Excellently argued, my friend! Away with you, and send your papers to me.—Come, Colonel, we have no more to do here."

"God, we'll ding [*Defeat] Jock o' Dawston Cleugh now after a'!" said Dinmont, slapping his thigh in great exultation.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

—I am going to the parliament;

You understand this bag: If you have any business Depending there, be short, and let me hear it, And pay your fees. Little French Lawyer.

"SHALL you be able to carry this honest fellow's cause for him?" said Mannering.

"Why, I don't know; the battle is not to the strong, but he shall come off triumphant over Jock of Dawston if we can make it out. I owe him something. It is the pest of our profession that we seldom see the best side of human nature. People come to us with every selfish feeling newly pointed and grinded; they turn down the very caulkers of their animosities and prejudices, as smiths do with horses' shoes in a white frost. Many a man has come to my garret Yonder, that I have at first longed to pitch out at the window, and yet, at length, have discovered that he was only doing as I might have done in his case, being very angry, and, of course, very unreasonable. I have now satisfied myself, that if our profession sees more of human folly and human roguery than others, it is because we witness them acting in that channel in which they can most freely vent themselves. In civilised society, law is the chimney through which all that smoke discharges itself that used to circulate through the whole house, and put every one's eyes out—no wonder, therefore, that the vent itself should sometimes get a little sooty. But we will take care our Liddesdale-man's cause is well conducted and well argued, so all unnecessary expense will be saved—he shall have his pineapple at wholesale price."

"Will you do me the pleasure," said Mannering, as they parted, "to dine with me at my lodgings? my landlord says he has a bit of red-deer venison, and some excellent wine."

"Venison—eh?" answered the counsellor alertly, but presently added—"But no! it's impossible—and I can't ask you home neither. Monday's a sacred day—so's Tuesday—and Wednesday, we are to be heard in the great teind case in presence—but stay—it's frosty weather, and if you don't leave town, and that venison would keep till Thursday—"

"You will dine with me that day?"

"Under certification."

"Well, then, I will indulge a thought I had of spending a week here; and if the venison will not keep, why, we will see what else our landlord can do for us."

"Oh, the venison will keep," said Pleydell; "and now good-bye—look at these two or three notes, and deliver them if you like the addresses. I wrote them for you this morning—farewell; my clerk has been waiting this hour to begin a d-d information."—And away walked Mr. Pleydell with great activity, diving through closes and ascending covered stairs, in order to attain the High Street by an access, which, compared to the common route, was what the Straits of Magellan are to the more open, but circuitous passage round Cape Horn.

On looking at the notes of introduction which Pleydell had thrust into his hand, Mannering was gratified with seeing that they were addressed to some of the first literary characters of Scotland. "To David Hume, Esq." "To John Home, Esq." "To Dr. Ferguson." "To Dr. Black." "To Lord Kaimes." "To Mr. Hutton." "To John Clerk, Esq., of Eldin." "To Adam Smith, Esq." "To Dr. Robertson."

"Upon my word, my legal friend has a good selection of acquaintances—these are names pretty widely blown indeed—an East-Indian must rub up his faculties a little, and put his mind in order, before he enters this sort of society."

Mannering gladly availed himself of these introductions; and we regret deeply it is not in our power to give the reader an account of the pleasure and information which he received, in admission to a circle never closed against strangers of sense and information, and which has perhaps at no period been equalled, considering the depth and variety of talent which it embraced and concentrated.

Upon the Thursday appointed, Mr. Pleydell made his appearance at the inn where Colonel Mannering lodged. The venison proved in high order, the claret excellent, and the learned counsel, a professed amateur in the affairs of the table, did distinguished honour to both. I am uncertain, however, if even the good cheer gave him more satisfaction than the presence of Dominie Sampson, from whom, in his own juridical style of wit, he contrived to extract great amusement, both for himself and one or two friends whom the Colonel regaled on the same occasion. The grave and laconic simplicity of Sampson's answers to the insidious questions of the barrister, placed the bonhomie of his character in a more luminous point of view than Mannering had yet seen it. Upon the same occasion he drew forth a strange quantity of miscellaneous and abstruse, though, generally speaking, useless learning. The lawyer afterwards compared his mind to the magazine of a pawnbroker, stowed with goods of every description, but so cumbrously piled together, and in such total disorganisation, that the owner can never lay his hands upon any one article at the moment he has occasion for it.

As for the advocate himself, he afforded at least as much exercise to Sampson as he extracted amusement from him. When the man of law began to get into his altitudes, and his wit, naturally shrewd and dry, became more lively and poignant, the Dominie looked upon him with that sort of surprise with which we can conceive a tame bear might regard his future associate, the monkey, on their being first introduced to each other. It was Mr. Pleydell's delight to state in grave and serious argument some position which he knew the Dominie would be inclined to dispute. He then beheld with exquisite pleasure the internal labour with which the honest man arranged his ideas for reply, and tasked his inert and sluggish powers to bring up all the heavy artillery of his learning for demolishing the schismatic or heretical opinion which had been stated—when, behold, before the ordnance could be discharged, the foe had quitted the post, and appeared in a new position of annoyance on the Dominie's flank or rear. Often did he exclaim "Prodigious!" when, marching up to the enemy in full confidence of victory, he found the field evacuated, and it may be supposed that it cost him no little labour to attempt a new formation. "He was like a native Indian army," the Colonel said, "formidable by numerical strength and size of ordnance, but liable to be thrown into irreparable confusion by a movement to take them in flank."—On the whole, however, the Dominie, though somewhat fatigued with these mental exertions, made at unusual speed and upon the pressure of the moment, reckoned this one of the white days of his life, and always mentioned Mr. Pleydell as a very erudite and fa-ce-ti-ous person.

By degrees the rest of the party dropped off, and left these three gentlemen together. Their conversation turned to Mrs. Bertram's settlements. "Now what could drive it into the noddle of that old harridan," said Pleydell, "to disinherit poor Lucy Bertram, under pretence of settling her property on a boy who has been so long dead and gone?—I ask your pardon, Mr. Sampson, I forgot what an affecting case this was for you—I remember taking your examination upon it—and I never had so much trouble to make any one speak three words consecutively—You may talk of your Pythagoreans, or your silent Brahmins, Colonel,—go to, I tell you this learned gentleman beats them all in taciturnity—but the words of the wise are precious, and not to be thrown away lightly."

"Of a surety," said the Dominie, taking his blue-checked handkerchief from his eyes, "that was a bitter day with me indeed; ay, and a day of grief hard to be borne—but He giveth strength who layeth on the load."

Colonel Mannering took this opportunity to request Mr. Pleydell to inform him of the particulars attending the loss of the boy; and the counsellor, who was fond of talking upon subjects of criminal jurisprudence, especially when connected with his own experience, went through the circumstances at full length. "And what is your opinion upon the result of the whole?"

"Oh, that Kennedy was murdered: it's an old case which has occurred on that coast before now—the case of Smuggler versus Exciseman."

"What then is your conjecture concerning the fate of the child?

"Oh, murdered too, doubtless," answered Pleydell. "He was old enough to tell what he had seen, and these ruthless scoundrels would not scruple committing a second Bethlehem massacre if they thought their interest required it."

The Dominie groaned deeply, and ejaculated, "Enormous!"

"'Yet there was mention of gipsies in the business too, counsellor," said Mannering, "and from what that vulgar-looking fellow said after the funeral—"

"Mrs. Margaret Bertram's idea that the child was alive was founded upon the report of a gipsy," said Pleydell, catching at the half-spoken hint—"I envy you the concatenation, Colonel—it is a shame to me not to have drawn the same conclusion. We'll follow this business tip instantly—Here, hark ye, waiter, go down to Luckie Wood's in the Cowgate; ye'll find my clerk Driver; he'll be set down to High-jinks by this time (for we and our retainers, Colonel, are exceedingly regular in our irregularities); tell him to come here instantly, and I will pay his forfeits."

"He won't appear in character, will he?" said Mannering.

"Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me," said Pleydell. "But we must have some news from the land of Egypt, if possible. Oh, if I had but hold of the slightest thread of this complicated skein, you should see how I would unravel it!—I would work the truth out of your Bohemian, as the French call them, better than a Monitoire, or a Plainte de Tournelle; I know how to manage a refractory witness."

While Mr. Pleydell was thus vaunting his knowledge of his profession, the waiter re-entered with Mr. Driver, his mouth still greasy with mutton pies, and the froth of the last draught of twopenny yet unsubsided on his upper lip, with such speed had he obeyed the commands of his principal.—"Driver, you must go instantly and find out the woman who was old Mrs. Margaret Bertram's maid. Inquire for her everywhere, but if you find it necessary to have recourse to Protocol, Quid the tobacconist, or any other of these folks, you will take care not to appear yourself, but send some woman of your acquaintance—I dare say you know enough that may be so condescending as to oblige you. When you have found her out, engage her to come to my chambers to-morrow at eight o'clock precisely."

"What shall I say to make her forthcoming?" asked the aide-de-camp.

"Anything you choose," replied the lawyer. "Is it my business to make lies for you, do you think? But let her be in praesentia by eight o'clock, as I have said before." The clerk grinned, made his reverence, and exit.

"That's a useful fellow," said the counsellor "I don't believe his match ever carried a process. He'll write to my dictating three nights in the week without sleep, or, what's the same thing, he writes as well and correctly when he's asleep as when he's awake. Then he's such a steady fellow—some of them are always changing their alehouses, so that they have twenty cadies sweating after them, like the bare-headed captains traversing the taverns of East-Cheap in search of Sir John Falstaff. But this is a complete fixture-he has his winter seat by the fire, and his summer seat by the window, in Luckie Wood's, betwixt which seats are his only migrations; there he's to be found at all times when he is off duty. It is my opinion he never puts off his clothes or goes to sleep—sheer ale supports him under everything. It is meat, drink, and clothing, bed, board, and washing."

"And is he always fit for duty upon a sudden turn-out? I should distrust it, considering his quarters."

"Oh, s drink never disturbs him, Colonel; he can write for hours after he cannot speak. I remember being called suddenly to draw an appeal case. I had been dining, and it was Saturday night, and I had ill will to begin to it—however, they got me down to Clerihugh's, and there we sat birling till I had a fair tappit hen, [*See Note VI. Tappit Hen. ] under my belt, and then they persuaded me to draw the paper. Then we had to seek Driver, and it was all that two men could do to bear him in, for, when found, he was, as it happened, both motionless and speechless. But no sooner was his pen put between his fingers, his paper stretched before him, and he heard my voice, than he began to write like a scrivener—and, excepting that we were obliged to have somebody to dip his pen in the ink, for he could not see the standish, I never saw a thing scrolled more handsomely."

"But how did your joint production look the next morning?" said the Colonel.

"Wheugh! capital—not three words required to be altered; [* See Note VII. Convivial Habits of the Scottish Bar. ] it was sent off by that day's post. But you'll come and breakfast with me to-morrow, and hear this woman's examination?"

"Why, your hour is rather early."

"Can't make it later. If I were not on the boards of the Outer House precisely as the nine-hours bell rings, there would be a report that I had got an apoplexy, and I should feel the effects of it all the rest of the session."

"Well, I will make an exertion to wait upon you."

Here the company broke up for the evening.

In the morning Colonel Mannering appeared at the counsellor's chambers, although cursing the raw air of a Scottish morning in December. Mr. Pleydell had got Mrs. Rebecca installed on one side of his fire, accommodated her with a cup of chocolate, and was already deeply engaged in conversation with her. "Oh no, I assure you, Mrs. Rebecca, there is no intention to challenge your mistress's will; and I give you my word of honour that your legacy is quite safe. You have deserved it by your conduct to your mistress, and I wish it had been twice as much."

"Why, to be sure, sir, it's no right to mention what is said before ane—ye heard how that dirty body Quid cast up to me the bits o' compliments he gied me, and tell'd owre again ony loose cracks [*Gossip ] I might hae had wi' him; now if ane was talking loosely to your honour, there's nae saying what might come o't."

"I assure you, my good Rebecca, my character and your own age and appearance are your security, if you should talk as loosely as an amatory poet."

"Aweel, if your honour thinks I am safe-the story is just this.—Ye see, about a year ago, or no just sae lang, my leddy was advised to go to Gilsland for a while for her spirits were distressing her sair. Ellangowan's troubles began to be spoken o' publicly, and sair vexed she was—or she was proud o' her family. For Ellangowan himsell and her, they sometimes 'greed, and sometimes no—but at last they didna 'gree at a' for twa or three year—for he was aye wanting to borrow siller, and that was what she couldna bide at no hand, and she was aye wanting it paid back again, and that the Laird he liked as little. So, at last, they were clean aff thegither. And then some of the company at Gilsland tells her that the estate was to be sell'd; and ye wad hae thought she had taen an ill will at Miss Lucy Bertram frae that moment, for mony a time she cried to me, 'O Becky, O Becky, if that useless peenging thing o' a lassie there, at Ellangowan, that canna keep her ne'er-do-weel father within bounds—if she had been but a lad-bairn, they couldna hae sell'd the auld inheritance for that fool-body's debt;'—and she would rin on that way till I was just wearied and sick to hear her ban the puir lassie, as if she wadna hae been a lad-bairn, and keepit the land, if it had been in her will to change her sect. And ae day at the spae-well below the craig at Gilsland, she was seeing a very bonny family o' bairns—they belonged to ane MacCrosky—and she broke out—'Is not it an odd like thing that ilka waf carlfe [*Every insignificant churl] in the country has a son and heir, and that the house of Ellangowan is without male succession?' There was a gipsy wife stood ahint and heard her—a muckle sture [*Strong] fearsome-looking wife she was as ever I set een on.—'Wha is it,' says she, 'that dare say the house of Ellangowan will perish without male succession?' My mistress just turned on her—she was a high-spirited woman, and aye ready wi' an answer to a' body. 'It's me that says it,' says she, 'that may say it with a sad heart.' Wi' that the gipsy wife gripped till her hand; 'I ken you weel eneugh,' said she, 'though ye kenna me—But as sure as that sun's in heaven, and as sure as that water's rinning to the sea, and as sure as there's an ee that sees, and an ear that hears us baith—Harry Bertram, that was thought to perish at Warroch Point, never did die there—he was to have a weary weird [*Cruel fate] o't till his ane-an-twentieth year, that was aye said o' him—but if ye live and I live, ye'll hear mair o' him this winter before the snaw lies twa days on the Dun of Singleside—I want nane o' your siller,' she said, 'to make ye think I am blearing [*Moistening ] your ee—fare ye weel till after Martimas;'—and there she left us standing."

"Was she a very tall woman?" interrupted Mannering.

"Had she black hair, black eyes, and a cut above the brow?" added the lawyer.

"She was the tallest woman I ever saw, and her hair was as black as midnight, unless where it was gray, and she had a scar abune the brow, that ye might hae laid the lith [*joint ] of your finger in. Naebody that's seen her will ever forget her; and I am morally sure that it was on the ground o' what that gipsy-woman said that my mistress made her will, having taen a dislike at the young leddy o' Ellangowan, and she liked her far waur after she was obliged to send her 20L—for she said, Miss Bertram, no content wi' letting the Ellangowan property pass into strange hands, owing to her being a lass and no a lad, was coming, by her poverty, to be a burden and a disgrace to Singleside too.—But I hope my mistress's is a good will for a' that, for it would be hard an me to lose the wee bit legacy—I served for little fee and bountith, weel I wot."

The counsellor relieved her fears on this head, then inquired after Jenny Gibson, and understood she had accepted Mr. Dinmont's offer; "and I have done sae mysell too, since he was sae discreet as to ask me," said Mrs. Rebecca; they are very decent folk the Dinmonts, though my lady didna dow to hear muckle about the friends on that side the house. But she liked the Charlies-hope hams, and the cheeses, and the muir-fowl, that they were aye sending, and the lamb's-wool hose and mittens—she liked them weel eneugh."

Mr. Pleydell now dismissed Mrs. Rebecca. When she was gone, "I think I know the gipsy woman," said the lawyer.

"I was just going to say the same," replied Mannering.

"And her name—" said Pleydell.

"Is Meg Merrilies," answered the Colonel.

"Are you avised of that?" said the counsellor, looking at his military friend with a comic expression of surprise.

Mannering answered that he had known such a woman when he was at Ellangowan upwards of twenty years before; and then made his learned friend acquainted with all the remarkable particulars of his first visit there.

Mr. Pleydell listened with great attention, and then replied, "I congratulated myself upon having made the acquaintance of a profound theologian in your chaplain; but I really did not expect to find a pupil of Albumazar or Messabala in his patron. I have a notion, however, this gipsy could tell us some more of the matter than she derives from astrology or second-sight—I had her through hands once, and could then make little of her, but I must write to Mac-Morlan to stir heaven and earth to find her out. I will gladly come to—shire myself to assist at her examination—I am still in the commission of the peace there, though I have ceased to be Sheriff—I never had anything more at heart in my life than tracing that murder, and the fate of the child. I must write to the Sheriff of Roxburghshire too, and to an active justice of peace in Cumberland."

"I hope when you come to the country you will make Woodbourne your headquarters?"

"Certainly; I was afraid you were going to forbid me—but we must go to breakfast now, or I shall be too late."

On the following day the new friends parted, And the Colonel rejoined his family without any adventure worthy of being detailed in these chapters.



CHAPTER XL.

Can no rest find me, no private place secure me, But still my miseries like bloodhounds haunt me? Unfortunate young man, which way now guides thee, Guides thee from death? The country's laid around for thee. Women Pleased.

Our narrative now recalls us for a moment to the period when young Hazlewood received his wound. That accident had no sooner happened, than the consequences to Miss Mannering and to himself rushed upon Brown's mind. From the manner in which the muzzle of the piece was pointed when it went off, he had no great fear that the consequences would be fatal. But an arrest in a strange country, and while he was unprovided with any means of establishing his rank and character, was at least to be avoided. He therefore resolved to escape for the present to the neighbouring coast of England, and to remain concealed there, if possible, until he should receive letters from his regimental, friends, and remittances from his agent; and then to resume his own character, and offer to young Hazlewood and his friends any explanation or satisfaction they might desire. With this purpose he walked stoutly forward, after leaving the spot where the accident had happened, and reached without adventure the village which we have called Portanferry (but which the reader will in vain seek for under that name in the county map). A large open boat was just about to leave the quay, bound for the little seaport of Allonby, in Cumberland. In this vessel Brown embarked, and resolved to make that place his temporary abode, until he should receive letters and money from England.

In the course of their short voyage he entered into some conversation with the steersman, who was also owner of the boat, a jolly old man, who had occasionally been engaged in the smuggling trade, like most fishers on the coast. After talking about objects of less interest, Brown endeavoured to turn the discourse toward the Mannering family. The sailor had heard of the attack upon the house at Woodbourne, but disapproved of the smugglers' proceedings.

"Hands off is fair play; zounds, they'll bring the whole country down upon them—na, na! when I was in that way I played at giff-gaff [*Give and take] with the officers—here a cargo taen—vera weel, that was their luck;—there another carried clean through, that was mine,—na, na! hawks shouldna pike out hawks' een."

"And this Colonel Mannering?" said Brown.

"Troth, he's nae wise man neither, to interfere—no that I blame him for saving the gaugers' lives—that was very right; but it wasna like a gentleman to be fighting about the poor folk's pocks o' tea and brandy kegs—however, he's a grand man and an officer man, and they do what they like wi' the like o' us."

"And his daughter," said Brown, with a throbbing heart, "is going to be married into a great family too, as I have heard?"

"What, into the Hazlewoods'?" said the pilot. "Na, na, that's but idle clashes-every Sabbath day, as regularly as it came round, did the young man ride hame wi' the daughter of the late Ellangowan—and my daughter Peggy's in the service up at Woodbourne, and she says she's sure young Hazlewood thinks nae mair of Miss Mannering than you do."

Bitterly censuring his own precipitate adoption of a contrary belief, Brown yet heard with delight that the suspicions of Julia's fidelity, upon which he had so rashly acted, were probably void of foundation. How must he in the meantime be suffering in her opinion? or what could she suppose of conduct, which must have made him appear to her regardless alike of her peace of mind, and of the interests of their affection? The old man's connection with the family at Woodbourne seemed to offer a safe mode of communication, of which he determined to avail himself.

"Your daughter is a maid-servant at Woodbourne?—I knew Miss Mannering in India, and though I am at present in an inferior rank of life, I have great reason to hope she would interest herself in my favour. I had a quarrel unfortunately with her father, who was my commanding officer, and I am sure the young lady would endeavour to reconcile him to me. Perhaps your daughter could deliver a letter to her upon she subject, without making mischief between her father and her?"

The old man, a friend to smuggling of every kind, readily answered for the letter's being faithfully and secretly delivered; and, accordingly, as soon as they arrived at Allonby, Brown wrote to Miss Mannering, stating the utmost contrition for what had happened through his rashness, and conjuring her to let him have an opportunity of pleading his own cause, and obtaining forgiveness for his indiscretion. He did not judge it safe to go into any detail concerning the circumstances by which he had been misled, and upon the whole endeavoured to express himself with such ambiguity, that if the letter should fall into wrong hands, it would be difficult either to understand its real purport, or to trace the writer. This letter the old man undertook faithfully to deliver to his daughter at Woodbourne: and, as his trade would speedily again bring him or his boat to Allonby, he promised further to take charge of any answer with which the young lady might entrust him.

And now our persecuted traveller landed at Allonby, and sought for such. accommodations as might at once suit his temporary poverty, and his desire of remaining as much unobserved as possible. With this view he assumed the name and profession of his friend Dudley, having command enough of the pencil to verify his pretended character to his host of Allonby. His baggage he pretended to expect front Wigton; and keeping himself as much within doors as possible, awaited the return of the letters which he had sent to his agent, to Delaserre, and to his Lieutenant-Colonel. From the first he requested a supply of money; he conjured Delaserre, if possible, to join him in Scotland; and from the Lieutenant-Colonel he required such testimony of his rank and conduct in the regiment as should place his character as a gentleman and officer beyond the power of question. The inconvenience of being run short in his finances struck him so strongly, that he wrote to Dinmont on that subject, requesting a small temporary loan, having no doubt that, being within sixty or seventy miles of his residence, he should receive a speedy as well as favourable answer to his request of pecuniary accommodation, which was owing, as he stated, to his having been robbed after their parting. And then, with impatience enough, though without any serious apprehension, he waited the answers of these various letters.

It must be observed, in excuse of his correspondents, that the post was then much more tardy than since Mr. Palmer's ingenious invention has taken place; and with respect to honest Dinmont in particular, as he rarely received above one letter a quarter (unless during the time of his being engaged in a lawsuit, when he regularly sent to the post-town), his correspondence usually remained for a month or two sticking in the postmaster's window, among pamphlets, gingerbread, rolls, or ballads, according to the trade which the said postmaster exercised. Besides, there was then a custom, not yet wholly obsolete, of causing a letter, from one town to another, perhaps within the distance of thirty miles, perform a circuit of two hundred miles before delivery; which had the combined advantage of airing the epistle thoroughly, of adding some pence to the revenue of the post-office, and of exercising the patience of the correspondents. Owing to these circumstances, Brown remained several days in Allonby without any answers whatever, and his stock of money, though husbanded with the utmost economy, began to wear very low, when he received, by the hands of a young fisherman, the following letter—

"You have acted with the most cruel indiscretion, you have shown how little I can trust to your declarations that my peace and happiness are dear to you; and your rashness has nearly occasioned the death of a young man of the highest worth and honour. Must I say more?—must I add, that I have been myself ill in consequence of your violence and its effects? And, alas! need I say still further, that I have thought anxiously upon them as they are likely to affect you, although you have given me such slight cause to do so? The C. is gone from home for several days; Mr. H. is almost quite recovered; and I have reason to think that the blame is laid in a quarter different from that where it is deserved. Yet do not think of venturing here. Our fate has been crossed by accidents of a nature too violent and terrible to permit me to think of renewing a correspondence which has so often threatened the most dreadful catastrophe. Farewell, therefore, and believe that no one can wish your happiness more sincerely than J. M."

This letter contained that species of advice, which is frequently given for the precise purpose that it may lead to a directly opposite conduct from that which it recommends. At least so thought Brown, who immediately asked the young fisherman if he came from Portanferry.