Part 48 (1/2)

Hazlewood turned his horse. ”Come back to us to dinner, Hazlewood,” cried the Colonel. He bowed, spurred his horse, and galloped off.

We now return to Bertram and Dinmont, who continued to follow their mysterious guide through the woods and dingles, between the open common and the ruined hamlet of Derncleugh. As she led the way, she never looked back upon her followers, unless to chide them for loitering, though the sweat, in spite of the season, poured from their brows. At other times she spoke to herself in such broken expressions as these--”It is to rebuild the auld house--it is to lay the corner-stone--and did I not warn him?--I tell'd him I was born to do it, if my father's head had been the stepping-stane, let alane his. I was doomed--still I kept my purpose in the cage and in the stocks;--I was banished--I kept it in an unco land;--I was scourged--I was branded--My resolution lay deeper than scourge or red iron could reach-and now the hour is come.”

”Captain,” said Dinmont, in a half whisper, ”I wish she binna uncanny! [*Mad] her words dinna seem to come in G.o.d's name, or like other folk's. Odd, they threep [*Declare] in our country that there are sic things.”

”Don't be afraid, my friend,” whispered Bertram in return.

”Fear'd! fient a haet [*Not a whit.] care I,” said the dauntless farmer, ”be she witch or deevil; it's a' ane to Dandie Dinmont.”

”Haud your peace, gudeman,” said Meg, looking sternly over her shoulder; ”is this a time or place for you to speak, think ye?”

”But, my good friend,” said Bertram, ”as I have no doubt in your good faith, or kindness, which I have experienced; you should in return have some confidence in me--I wish to know where you are leading us.”

”There's but ae answer to that, Henry Bertram,” said the sibyl.--”Iswore my tongue should never tell, but I never said my finger should never show. Go on and meet your fortune, or turn back and lose it--that's a' I hae to say.”

”Go on then,” answered Bertram ”I will ask no more questions.”

They descended into the glen about the same place where Meg had formerly parted from Bertram., She paused an instant beneath the tall rock where he had witnessed the burial of a dead body, and stamped upon the ground, which, notwithstanding all the care that had been taken, showed vestiges of having been recently moved.

”Here rests ane,” she said, ”he'll maybe hae neibors sune.”

She then moved up the brook until she came to the ruined hamlet, where, pausing with a look of peculiar and softened interest before one of the gables which was still standing, she said in a tone less abrupt, though as solemn as before, ”Do you see that blackit and broken end of a shealing? [*Hut]--there my kettle boiled for forty years--there I bore twelve buirdly sons and daughters--where are they now?--where are the leaves that were on that auld ash-tree at Martinmas!--the west wind has made it bare--and I'm stripped too.--Do you see that saugh-tree?--it's but a blackened rotten stump now--I've sat under it mony a bonnie summer afternoon, when it hung its gay garlands ower the poppling water.--I've sat there, and,” elevating her voice, ”I've held you on my knee, Henry Bertram, and sung ye sangs of the auld barons and their b.l.o.o.d.y wars--it will ne'er be green again, and Meg Merrilies will never sing sangs mair, be they blithe or sad. But ye'll no forget her, and ye'll gar big up [*Cause to be built up.] the auld wa's for her sake?--and let somebody live there that's, ower gude to fear them of another warld--For if ever the dead came back amang the living. I'll be seen in this glen mony a night after these crazed banes are in the mould.”

The mixture of insanity and wild pathos with which she spoke these last words, with her right arm, bare and extended, her left bent and shrouded beneath the dark red drapery of her mantle, might have been a study worthy of our Siddons herself. ”And now,” she said, resuming at once the short, stern, and hasty tone which was most ordinary to her--”let us to the wark--let us to the wark.”

She then led the way to the promontory on which the Kaim of Derncleugh was situated, produced a large key from her pocket, and unlocked the door. The interior of this place was in better order than formerly. ”Ihave made things decent,” she said; ”I may be streekit, [*Stretched out] here or night.--There will be few, few at Meg's lykewake, [*Watching over a corpse by night.] for mony of our folk will blame what I hae done, and am to do!”

She then pointed to a table, upon which was some cold meat, arranged with more attention to neatness than could have been expected from Meg's habits. ”Eat,” she said, ”eat; ye'll need it this night yet.”

Bertram, in complaisance, ate a morsel or two and Dinmont, whose appet.i.te was unabated either by wonder, apprehension, or the meal of the morning, made his usual figure as a trencherman. She then offered each a single gla.s.s of spirits, which Bertram drank diluted, and his companion plain.

”Will ye taste naething yourself, Luckie?” said Dinmont.

”I shall not need it,” replied their mysterious hostess. ”And now,”

she said, ”ye maun hae arms--ye maunna gang on dry-handed--but use them not rashly--take captive, but save life--let the law hae its ain--he maun speak ere he die.”

”Who is to be taken?--who is to speak?” said Bertram in astonishment, receiving a pair of pistols which she offered him, and which, upon examining, he found loaded and locked.

”The flints are gude,” she said, ”and the powder dry--I ken this wark weel.”

Then, without answering his questions, she armed Dinmont also with a large pistol, and desired them to choose sticks for themselves out of a parcel of very suspicious-looking bludgeons, which she brought from a corner. Bertram took a stout sapling, and Dandie selected a club which might have served Hercules himself. They then left the hut together, and, in doing so, Bertram took an opportunity to whisper to Dinmont, ”There's something inexplicable in all this--But we need not use these arms unless we see necessity and lawful occasion--take care to do as you see me do.”

Dinmont gave a sagacious nod; and they continued to follow, over wet and over dry, through bog and through fallow, the footsteps of their conductress. She guided them to the wood of Warroch by the same track which the late Ellangowan had used when riding to Derncleugh in quest of his child, on the miserable evening of Kennedy's murder.

When Meg Merrilies had attained these groves, through which the wintry sea-wind was now whistling hoa.r.s.e and shrill, she seemed to pause a moment as if to recollect the way. ”We maun go the precise track,” she said, and continued to go forward, but rather in a zigzag and involved course than according to her former steady and direct line of motion. At length she guided them through the mazes of the wood to a little open glade of about a quarter of an acre, surrounded by trees and bushes, which made a wild and irregular boundary. Even in winter it was a sheltered and snugly sequestered spot; but when arrayed in the verdure of spring, the earth sending forth all its wild flowers, the shrubs spreading their waste of blossom around it, and the weeping birches, which towered over the underwood, drooping their long and leafy fibres to intercept the sun, it must have seemed a place for a youthful poet to study his earliest sonnet, or a pair of lovers to exchange their first mutual avowal of affection. Apparently it now awakened very different recollections. Bertram's brow, when he had looked round the spot, became gloomy and embarra.s.sed. Meg, after uttering to herself, ”This is the very spot!” looked at him with a ghastly side-glance,--”D'ye mind it?”

”Yes answered Bertram, ”imperfectly I do.”

”Ay!” pursued his guide, ”on this very spot the man fell from his horse--I was behind that bourtree-bush at the very moment. Sair, sair he strove, and sair he cried for mercy--but he was in the hands of them that never kenn'd the word!--Now will I show you the further track--the last time ye travelled it was in these arms.”