Guy Mannering Part 52

"Wetter! will you deny that all that cursed attempt at Portanferry, which lost both sloop and crew, was your device for your own job?"

"But the goods, you know--"

"Curse the goods!" said the smuggler,--"we could have got plenty more; but, der deyvil! to lose the ship and the fine follows, and my own life, for a cursed coward villain, that always works his own mischief with other people's hands! Speak to me no more--I'm dangerous."

"But, Dirk--but, Hatteraick, hear me only a few words."

"Hagel! nein."

"Only one sentence."

"Tausand curses--nein!"

"At least get up for an obstinate Dutch brute!" said Glossin, losing his temper, and pushing Hatteraick with his foot.

"Donner and blitzen!" said Hatteraick, springing up and grappling with him; "you will have it then?"

Glossin struggled and resisted; but, owing to his surprise at the fury of the a.s.sault, so ineffectually, that he fell: under Hatteraick, the back part of his neck coming full upon the iron bar with stunning violence. The death-grapple continued. The room immediately below the condemned ward, being that of Glossin, was, of course, empty; but the inmates of the second apartment beneath felt the shock of Glossin's heavy fall, and heard a noise as of struggling and of groans. But all sounds of horror were too congenial to this place to excite much curiosity or interest.

In the morning, faithful to his promise, Mac-Guffog came--"Mr.

Glossin," said be, in, a whispering voice.

"Call louder," answered Dirk Hatteraick.

"Mr. Glossin, for G.o.d's sake come away!"

"He'll hardly do that without help," said Hatteraick.

"What are you chattering there for, Mac-Guffog?" called out the captain from below.

"Come away, for G.o.d's sake. Mr. Glossin!" repeated the. turnkey.

At this moment the jailor made his appearance with a light. Great was his surprise, and even horror, to observe Glossin's body lying doubled across the iron bar, in a posture that excluded all idea of his being alive. Hatteraick was quietly stretched upon his pallet within a yard of his victim. On lifting Glossin, it was found he had been dead for some hours. His body bore uncommon marks of violence. The spine where it joins the skull had received severe injury by his first fall. There were distinct marks of strangulation about the throat, which corresponded with the blackened state of his face. The head was turned backward over the shoulder, as if the neck had been wrung round with desperate violence. So that it would seem that his inveterate antagonist had fixed a fatal gripe upon the wretch's throat, and never quitted it while life lasted. The lantern, crushed and broken to pieces, lay beneath the body.

Mac-Morlan was in the town, and came instantly to examine the corpse. "What brought Glossin here?" he said to Hatteraick.

"The devil!" answered the ruffian.

"And what did you do to him?"

"Sent him to h.e.l.l before me!" replied the miscreant.

"Wretch," said Mac-Morlan, "you have crowned a life spent without a single virtue, with the murder of your own miserable accomplice!"

"Virtue?" exclaimed the prisoner; "donner! I was always faithful to my shipowners--always accounted for cargo to the last stiver. Hark ye! let me have pen and ink, and I'll write an account of the whole to our house; and leave me alone a couple of hours, will ye--and let them take away that piece of carrion, donner wetter!"

Mac-Morlan deemed it the best way to humour the savage; he was furnished with writing materials and left alone. When they again opened the door, it was found that this determined villain had antic.i.p.ated justice. He had adjusted a cord taken from the truckle-bed, and attached it to a bone, the relic of his yesterday's dinner, which he had contrived to drive into a crevice between two stones in the wall at a height as great as he could reach, standing upon the bar. Having fastened the noose, he had the resolution to drop his body as if to fall on his knees, and to retain that posture until resolution was no longer necessary. The letter he had written to his owners, though chiefly upon the business of their trade, contained many allusions to the younker of Ellangowan, as he called him, and afforded absolute confirmation of all Meg Merrilies and her nephew had told.

To dismiss the catastrophe of these two wretched men, I shall only add, that Mac-Guffog was turned out of office, notwithstanding his declaration (which he offered to attest by oath), that he had locked Glossin safely in his own room upon the night preceding his being found dead in Dirk Hatteraick's cell. His story, however, found faith with the worthy Mr. Skreigh, and other lovers of, the marvellous, who still hold that the Enemy of Mankind brought these two wretches together upon that night, by supernatural interference, that they might fill up the cup of their guilt and receive its meed, by murder and suicide.

CHAPTER LVIII.

To sum the whole-the close of all.

DEAN SWIFT.

As Glossin died without heirs, and without payment of the price, the estate of Ellangowan was again thrown upon the hands of Mr.

G.o.dfrey Bertram's creditors, the right of most of whom was however defensible, in case Henry Bertram should establish his character of heir of entail. This young gentleman put his affairs into the hands of Mr. Pleydell and Mr. Mac-Morlan, with one single proviso, that though he himself should be obliged again to go to India, every debt, justly and honourably due by his father, should be made good to the claimant. Mannering, who heard this declaration, grasped him kindly by the hand, and from that moment might be dated a thorough understanding between them.

The h.o.a.rds of Miss Margaret Bertram, and the liberal a.s.sistance of the Colonel, easily enabled the heir to make provision for payment of the just creditors of his father, while the ingenuity and research of his law friends detected, especially in the accounts of Glossin, so many overcharges as greatly diminished the total amount. In these circ.u.mstances the creditors did not hesitate to recognise Bertram's right, and to surrender to him the house and property of his ancestors. All the party repaired from Woodbourne to take possession, amid the shouts of the tenantry and the neighbourhood; and so eager was Colonel Mannering to superintend certain improvements which he had recommended to Bertram, that he removed with his family from Woodbourne to Ellangowan, although at present containing much less and much inferior accommodation.

The poor Dominie's brain was almost turned with joy on returning to his old habitation. He posted upstairs, taking three steps at once, to a little shabby attic, his cell and dormitory in former days, and which the possession of his much superior apartment at Woodbourne had never banished from his memory. Here one sad thought suddenly struck the honest man--the books!--no three rooms in Ellangowan were capable to contain them. While this qualifying reflection was pa.s.sing through his mind, he was suddenly summoned by Mannering to a.s.sist in calculating some proportions relating to a large and splendid house, which was to be built on the site of the New Place of Ellangowan, in a style corresponding to the magnificence of the ruins in its vicinity. Among the various rooms in the plan, the Dominie observed, that one of the largest . vas ent.i.tled THE LIBRARY; and close beside was a snug well-proportioned chamber, ent.i.tled, MR. SAMPSON'S APARTMENT.--"Prodigious, prodigious, pro-di-gi-ous!" shouted the enraptured Dominie.

Mr. Pleydell had left the party for some time; but he returned, according to promise, during the Christmas recess of the courts.

He drove up to Ellangowan when all the family were abroad but the Colonel, who was busy with plans of buildings and pleasure-grounds, in which he was well skilled, and took great delight.

"Ah ha!" said the counsellor, "so here you are! Where are the ladies? where is the fair Julia?"

"Walking out with young Haziewood, Bertram, and Captain Delaserre, a friend of his, who is with us just now. They are gone to plan out a cottage at Derncleugh. Well, have you carried through your law business?"

"With a wet finger," answered the lawyer; "got our youngster's special service retoured into Chancery. We had him served heir before the macers."

"Macers? who are they?"

"Why, it is a kind of judicial Saturnalia. You must know, that one of the requisites to be a macer, or officer in attendance upon our supreme court, is, that they shall be men of no knowledge."

"Very well!"

"Now, our Scottish legislature, for the joke's sake I suppose, have const.i.tuted those men of no knowledge into a peculiar court for trying questions of relationship and descent, such as this business of Bertram, which often involve the most nice and complicated questions of evidence."

"The devil they have? I should think that rather inconvenient,"

said Mannering.

"Oh, we have a practical remedy for the theoretical absurdity. One or two of the judges act upon such occasions as prompters and a.s.sessors to their own doorkeepers. But you know what Cujacius says, 'Multa sunt in moribus dissentanea, multa sine ratione.'

[*The singular inconsistency hinted at is now, in a great degree, removed] However, this Saturnalian court has done our business; and a glorious batch of claret we had afterwards at Walker's.

Mac-Morlan will stare when he sees the bill."

"Never fear," said the Colonel, "we'll face the shock, and entertain the county at my friend Mrs. Mac-Candlish's to boot."

"And choose Jock Jabos for your master of horse?" replied the lawyer.

"Perhaps I may."

"And where is Dandie, the redoubted Lord of Liddesdale?" demanded the advocate.

"Returned to his mountains; but he has promised Julia to make a descent in summer, with the good wife, as he calls her, and I don't know how many children."

"Oh, the curly-headed varlets! I must come to play at Blind Harry and Hy Spy with them.--But what is all this?" added Pleydell, taking up the plans;--"tower in the centre to be an imitation of the Eagle Tower at Caernarvon--corps de logis--the devil!--wings--wings? why, the house will take the estate of Ellangowan on its back, and fly away with it!"