Red Cap Tales Part 11

"You are, I suppose," said Mannering, calmly, "the master of that vessel in the bay?"

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the sailor, "I am Captain Dirk Hatteraick of the _Yungfrauw Hagenslaapen_, and I am not ashamed of my name or of my vessel, either. Right cognac I carry--rum, lace, real Mechlin, and Souchong tea--if you will come aboard, I will send you ash.o.r.e with a pouchful of that last--Dirk Hatteraick knows how to be civil!"

Mannering got rid of his offers without openly offending the man, and was well content to see the precious pair vanish down the stone stairs which had formerly served the garrison of the castle in time of siege.

On his return to the house of Ellangowan, Mannering related his adventure, and asked of his host who this villanous-looking Dutchman might be, and why he was allowed to wander at will on his lands.

This was pulling the trigger, and Mr. Bertram at once exploded into a long catalogue of griefs. According to him, the man was undoubtedly one Captain Dirk Hatteraick, a smuggler or free-trader. As for allowing him on his lands--well, Dirk was not very canny to meddle with. Besides, impossible as it was to believe, he, G.o.dfrey Bertram of Ellangowan, was not upon his Majesty's commission of the peace for the county. Jealousy had kept him off--among other things the ill-will of the sitting member.

Besides which--after all a gentleman must have his cognac, and his lady her tea and silks. Only smuggled articles came into the country. It was a pity, of course, but he was not more to blame than others.

Thus the Laird maundered on, and Mannering, glad to escape being asked about the doubtful fortune which the stars had predicted for the young heir, did not interrupt him. On the next day, however, before he mounted his horse, he put the written horoscope into a sealed envelope, and, having strictly charged Bertram that it should not be opened till his son reached the age of five years, he took his departure with many expressions of regret.

The next five years were outwardly prosperous ones for G.o.dfrey Bertram of Ellangowan. As the result of an election where he had been of much service to the winning candidate, he was again made a Justice of the Peace, and immediately he set about proving to his brothers of the bench that he could be both a determined and an active magistrate. But this apparent good, brought as usual much of evil with it. Many old kindly customs and courtesies had endeared G.o.dfrey Bertram to his poorer neighbours. He was, they said, no man's enemy, and even the gipsies of the little settlement would have cut off their right hands before they touched a pennyworth belonging to the Laird, their patron and protector.

But the other landlords twitted him with pretending to be an active magistrate, and yet harbouring a gang of gipsies at his own door-cheek.

Whereupon the Laird went slowly and somewhat sadly home, revolving schemes for getting rid of the colony of Derncleugh, at the head of which was the old witch-wife Meg Merrilies.

Occasions of quarrel were easy to find. The sloe-eyed gipsy children swinging on his gates were whipped down. The rough-coated donkeys forbidden to eat their bite of gra.s.s in peace by the roadside. The men were imprisoned for poaching, and matters went so far that one stout young fellow was handed over to the press-gang at Dumfries and sent to foreign parts to serve on board a man-of-war.

The gipsies, on their side, robbed the Ellangowan hen-roosts, stole the linen from my lady's bleaching-green, cut down and barked the young trees--though all the while scarce believing that their ancient friend the Laird of Ellangowan had really turned against them.

During these five years the son, so strangely brought into the world on the night of Mannering's visit, had been growing into the boldest and brightest of boys. A wanderer by nature from his youth, he went fearlessly into each nook and corner of his father's estates in search of berries and flowers. He hunted every bog for rushes to weave grenadiers' caps, and haled the hazelnuts from the lithe coppice boughs.

To Dominie Sampson, long since released from his village school, the difficult task was committed of accompanying, restraining, and guiding this daring spirit and active body. Shy, uncouth, awkward, with the memory of his failure in the pulpit always upon him, the Dominie was indeed quite able to instruct his pupil in the beginnings of learning, but it proved quite out of his power to control the pair of twinkling legs belonging to Master Harry Bertram. Once was the Dominie chased by a cross-grained cow. Once he fell into the brook at the stepping-stones, and once he was bogged in his middle in trying to gather water-lilies for the young Laird. The village matrons who relieved Dominie Sampson on this last occasion, declared that the Laird might just as well "trust the bairn to the care o' a tatie-bogle!"[2] But the good tutor, nothing daunted, continued grave and calm through all, only exclaiming, after each fresh misfortune, the single word "Prodeegious!"

Often, too, Harry Bertram sought out Meg Merrilies at Derncleugh, where he played his pranks among the gipsies as fearlessly as within the walls of Ellangowan itself. Meanwhile the war between that active magistrate G.o.dfrey Bertram and the gipsies grew ever sharper. The Laird was resolved to root them out, in order to stand well with his brother magistrates. So the gipsies sullenly watched while the ground officer chalked their doors in token that they must "flit" at the next term.

At last the fatal day arrived. A strong force of officers summoned the gipsies to quit their houses, and when they did not obey, the sheriff's men broke down the doors and pulled the roofs off the poor huts of Derncleugh.

G.o.dfrey Bertram, who was really a kindly man, had gone away for the day to avoid the sight, leaving the business to the chief exciseman of the neighbourhood,--one Frank Kennedy, a bold, roistering blade, who knew no fear, and had no qualms whatever about ridding the neighbourhood of a gang of "sorners and thieves," as he called the Derncleugh gipsies.

But as G.o.dfrey was riding back to Ellangowan with a single servant, right in the middle of the King's highway, he met the whole congregation of the exiles, evicted from their ruined houses, and sullenly taking their way in search of a new shelter against the storms of the oncoming winter. His servant rode forward to command every man to stand to his beast's head while the Laird was pa.s.sing.

"He shall have his half of the road," growled one of the tall thin gipsies, his features half-buried in a slouch hat, "but he shall have no more. The highway is as free to our cuddies as to his horse."

Never before had the Laird of Ellangowan received such a discourteous reception. Anxious at the last to leave a good impression, he stammered out as he pa.s.sed one of the older men, "And your son, Gabriel Baillie, is he well?" (He meant the young man who had been sent by means of the press-gang to foreign parts.) With a deep scowl the old man replied, "If I had heard otherwise, _you_ would have heard it too!"

At last G.o.dfrey Bertram thought that he had escaped. He had pa.s.sed the last laden donkey of the expelled tribe. He was urging his beast toward Ellangowan with a saddened spirit, when suddenly at a place where the road was sunk between two high banks, Meg Merrilies appeared above him, a freshly cut sapling in her hand, her dark eyes flashing anger, and her elf-locks straying in wilder confusion than ever.

"Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan," she cried, "ride your ways, G.o.dfrey Bertram! This day ye have quenched seven smoking hearths--see if the fire in your own parlour burns the brighter for that? Ye have riven the thatch off seven cottars' houses--look if your roof-tree stands the faster. There are thirty yonder that would have shed their lifeblood for you--thirty, from the child of a week to the auld wife of a hundred, that you have made homeless, that you have sent out to sleep with the fox and the blackc.o.c.k. Our bairns are hanging on our weary backs--look to it that your braw cradle at hame is the fairer spread! Now ride your ways, G.o.dfrey Bertram. These are the last words ye shall ever hear from Meg Merrilies, and this the last staff that I shall ever cut in the bonny woods of Ellangowan!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MEG MERRILIES appeared above him, a freshly cut sapling in her hand, her dark eyes flashing anger, and her elf-locks straying in wilder confusion than ever.

"'Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan,' she cried, 'ride your ways, G.o.dfrey Bertram! This day ye have quenched seven smoking hearths--see if the fire in your own parlour burns the brighter for that!'"]

And with the gesture of a queen delivering sentence she broke the sapling she had held in her hand, and flung the fragments into the road.

The Laird was groping in his pocket for half a crown, and thinking meanwhile what answer to make. But disdaining both his reply and his peace-offering, Meg strode defiantly downhill after the caravan.

Not only was there war by land at Ellangowan. There was also war by sea.

The Laird, determined for once not to do things by halves, had begun to support Frank Kennedy, the chief revenue officer, in his campaign against the smugglers. Armed with Ellangowan's warrant, and guided by his people who knew the country, Kennedy swooped down upon Dirk Hatteraick as he was in the act of landing a large cargo upon Ellangowan's ground. After a severe combat he had been able to clap the government broad-arrow upon every package and carry them all off to the nearest customs' post. Dirk Hatteraick got safely away, but he went, vowing in English, Dutch, and German, the direst vengeance against Frank Kennedy, G.o.dfrey Bertram, and all his enemies.

It was a day or two after the eviction of the gipsies when the Lady of Ellangowan, suddenly remembering that it was her son Harry's fifth birthday, demanded of her husband that he should open and read the horoscope written by the wandering student of the stars five years before. While they were arguing about the matter, it was suddenly discovered that little Harry was nowhere to be found. His guardian, Dominie Sampson, having returned without him, was summoned to give an account of his stewardship by the angry mother.

"Mr. Sampson," she cried, "it is the most extraordinary thing in the world wide, that you have free up-putting in this house,--bed, board, washing, and twelve pounds sterling a year just to look after that boy,--and here you have let him out of your sight for three hours at a time!"

Bowing with awkward grat.i.tude at each clause in this statement of his advantages, the poor Dominie was at last able to stammer out that Frank Kennedy had taken charge of Master Harry, in the face of his protest, and had carried him off to Warroch Head to see the taking of Dirk Hatteraick's ship by the King's sloop-of-war, which he had ridden all the way to Wigton Bay to bring about.

"And if that be so," cried the Lady of Ellangowan, "I am very little obliged to Frank Kennedy. The bairn may fall from his horse, or anything may happen."

The Laird quieted his wife by telling her that he and Frank Kennedy had together seen the sloop-of-war giving chase to Dirk Hatteraick's ship, and that even then the Dutchman, disabled and on fire, was fast drifting upon the rocks. Frank Kennedy had ridden off to a.s.sist in the capture by signalling to the man-of-war from Warroch Head, and had evidently picked up little Harry upon the way. He would doubtless, continued the Laird, be back in a little time. For he had ordered the punch-bowl to be made ready, that they might drink good luck to the King's service and confusion to all smugglers and free-traders wherever found.

But hour after hour went by, and neither Frank Kennedy nor the boy Harry returned. The night approached. Parties of searchers anxiously beat the woods and patrolled the cliffs. For long they found nothing, but at last a boat's crew, landing perilously at the foot of the precipices, came upon the body of the excise officer, a sword-cut in his head, lying half in and half out of the water. He had been flung from the cliffs above. Frank Kennedy was dead--as to that there was no question. But what had become of the child, Harry Bertram? That--no one could answer.

Not a trace of him was to be found. The smuggler's ship still burned fiercely, but Dirk Hatteraick and his men had completely vanished. Some one suggested the gipsies, whereupon the Laird mounted the first horse he came across and rode furiously to the huts of Derncleugh. Bursting in a door, he found on the ruined hearth of the house that had once sheltered Meg Merrilies, a fire still smouldering. But there, too, G.o.dfrey Bertram discovered nothing and no one.

While he remained on the spot, dazed and uncertain, looking at the blackened hearthstone, his old servant entered hastily to bid him return at once to Ellangowan. His wife had been taken dangerously ill. G.o.dfrey spurred as fast as horse would carry him, but Death had gone faster, and had arrived before him. When he reached the gate, the Lady of Ellangowan was dead, leaving him with a little baby girl less than an hour old. The shock of Kennedy's murder and her own little Harry's loss had killed her.

INTERLUDE OF INTERROGATION

The melancholy conclusion of the first _Guy Mannering_ tale kept the children quieter than usual. I think they regretted a little the gallant opening of _Waverley_, but as ever they were full of questions.

"And all that happened here, in our Galloway?"

began Sweetheart, looking about her at the hills of dark heather and the sparkling Solway sands, from which the storm-clouds were just beginning to lift.

"Yes," I answered her, "though it is doubtful if Scott ever _was_ in Galloway. But he had seen Criffel across from Dumfries-shire, and the castle of Ellangowan is certainly described from the ruins of Caerlaverock, opposite New Abbey. Besides, had he not good old Joseph Train, the Castle Douglas exciseman, to tell him everything--than whom no man knew Galloway better?"

"Did gipsies really steal children?" said Maid Margaret, with some apprehension. She was somewhat anxious, for an affirmative answer might interfere with certain wide operations in blackberrying which she was planning.

"Sometimes they did," I answered, "but not nearly so often as they were blamed for. They had usually enough mouths of their own to feed. So, unless they were sure of a ransom, or perhaps occasionally for the sake of revenge, gipsies very seldom were guilty of kidnapping."

"But they always do steal them in books," said Hugh John; "well, I would just like to see them cart me off! And if they took Sir Toady Lion, they would soon send him back. He eats so much!"

This was Hugh John's idea of a joke, and somewhat hastily I interrupted fraternal strife by returning to the general subject.

"Adam Smith, a very learned man, who afterwards wrote _The Wealth of Nations_, was stolen by gipsies when a child," I said.

"_I_ wish they had just kept him," said Hugh John, unexpectedly; "then we wouldn't have had to paraphrase the beastly thing at school. It is as full of jaw-breakers as a perch is full of bones."

"Was little Harry really stolen by gipsies, or was he killed over the cliff?" queried Maid Margaret.

"Of course he was stolen, silly," broke in Sir Toady Lion, sagely; "look how much more of the book there has got to be all about him. Think there would be all that, if he got killed right at the beginning, eh?"

"Do any people smuggle nowadays?" demanded Hugh John.

"Of course they do--in Spain," interjected Sir Toady Lion, "father got put in prison there once."