The surgeon arrived at the same time, and was about to probe the
wound; but Meg resisted the assistance of either. "It's no what man
can do, that will heal my body, or save my spirit. Let me speak what I
have to say, and then ye may work your will, I'se be nae hinderance.
But where's Henry Bertram?" The assistants, to whom this name had
been long a stranger, gazed upon each other. "Yes," she said, in a
stronger and harsher tone, "I said Henry Bertram of Ellangowan. Stand
from the light and let me see him."
All eyes were turned toward Bertram, who approached the wretched
couch. The wounded woman took hold of his hand. "Look at him," she
said, "all that ever saw his father or his grandfather, and bear
witness if he is not their living image?" A murmur went through the
crowd--the resemblance was too striking to be denied. "And now hear
me--and let that man," pointing to Hatteraick, who was seated with his
keepers on a sea-chest at some distance--"let him deny what I say, if
he can. That is Henry Bertram, son to Godfrey Bertram, umquihile of
Ellangowan; that young man is the very lad-bairn that Dirk Hatteraick
carried off from Warroch wood the day that he murdered the gager. I
was there like a wandering spirit--for I longed to see that wood or we
left the country. I saved the bairn's life, and sair, sair I prigged
and prayed they would leave him wi' me--but they bore him away, and
he's been lang ower the sea, and now he's come for his ain, and what
should withstand him? I swore to keep the secret till he was
ane-an'-twenty--I kenn'd he behoved to dree his weird till that day
cam--I keepit that oath which I took to them--but I made another vow
to myself, and if I lived to see the day of his return, I would set
him in his father's seat, if every step was on a dead man. I have
keepit that oath, too;--I will be ae step mysell--he" (pointing to
Hatteraick), "will soon be another, and there will me ane mair yet."
The clergyman now interposing, remarked it was a pity this deposition
was not regularly taken and written down, and the surgeon urged the
necessity of examining the wound, previously to exhausting her by
questions. When she saw them removing Hatteraick, in order to clear
the room and leave the surgeon to his operations, she called out
aloud, raising herself at the same time upon the couch, "Dirk
Hatteraick, you and I will never meet again until we are before the
judgment seat--will you own to what I have said, or will you dare deny
it?" He turned his hardened brow upon her, with a look of dumb and
inflexible defiance. "Dirk Hatteraick, dare ye deny, with my blood
upon your hands, one word of what my dying breath is uttering?" He
looked at her with the same expression of hardihood and dogged
stubbornness, and moved his lips, but uttered no sound. "Then
fareweel!" she said, "and God forgive you! your hand has sealed my
evidence. When I was in life, I was the mad randy gipsy, that had been
scourged, and banished, and branded--that had begged from door to
door, and been hounded like a stray from parish to parish--wha would
hae minded her tale? But now I am a dying woman, and my words will not
fall to the ground, any more than the earth will cover my blood!"
She here paused, and all left the hut except the surgeon and two or
three women. After a short examination, he shook his head, and
resigned his post by the dying woman's side to the clergyman.
A chaise returning empty to Kippletringan had been stopt on the
high-road by a constable, who foresaw it would be necessary to convey
Hatteraick to jail. The driver, understanding what was going on at
Derncleugh, left his horses to the care of the blackguard boy,
confiding, it is to be supposed, rather in the years and discretion of
the cattle, than in those of their keeper, and set off full speed, to
see, as he exprest himself, "whaten a sort o' fun was gaun on." He
arrived just as the group of tenants and peasants, whose numbers
increased every moment, satiated with gazing upon the rugged features
of Hatteraick, had turned their attention toward Bertram. Almost all
of them, especially the aged men who had seen Ellengowan in his better
days, felt and acknowledged the justice of Meg Merriles's appeal. But
the Scotch are a cautious people; they remembered there was another in
possession of the estate, and they as yet only exprest their feelings
in low whispers to each other. Our friend, Jock Jabos, the postilion,
forced his way into the middle of the circle; but no sooner cast his
eyes upon Bertram, than he started back in amazement, with a solemn
exclamation, "As sure as there's breath in man, it's auld Ellengowan."
This public declaration of an unprejudiced witness was just the spark
wanted to give fire to the popular feeling, which burst forth in three
distinct shouts: "Bertram forever!" "Long life to the heir of
Ellangowan!" "God send him his ain, and to live among us as his
forebears did of yore!"
"I hae been seventy years on the land," said one person.
"I and mine hae been seventy and seven to that," said another; "I have
a right to ken the glance of a Bertram."
"I and mine hae been three hundred years here," said another old man,
"and I shall sell my last cow but I'll see the young laird placed in
his right."
The women, ever delighted with the marvelous, and not less so when a
handsome young man is the subject of the tale, added their shrill
acclamations to the general all-hail. "Blessings on him--he's the very
picture o' his father! The Bertrams were ay the wale o' the
countryside!"
"Eh! that his puir mother, that died of grief and in doubt about him,
had but lived to see this day!" exclaimed some female voices.
"But we'll help him to his ain, kimmers," cried others; "and before
Gossin shall keep the Place of Ellangowan, we'll howk him out o't wi'
our nails!"
Others crowded around Dinmont, who was nothing loath to tell what he
knew of his friend, and to boast the honor which he had in
contributing to the discovery. As he was known to several of the
principal farmers present, his testimony afforded an additional motive
to the general enthusiasm. In short, it was one of those moments of
intense feeling, when the frost of the Scottish people melts like a
snow-wreath, and the dissolving torrent carries dam and dike before
it.
The sudden shouts interrupted the devotions of the clergyman; and Meg,
who was in one of those dozing fits of stupefaction that precede the
close of existence, suddenly started, "Dinna ye hear?--dinna ye
hear?--he's owned!--he's owned!--I lived but for this. I am a sinful
woman; but if my curse brought it down, my blessing has taen it off!
And now I wad hae liked to hae said mair. But it can not be.
Stay"--she continued, stretched her head toward the gleam of light
that shot through the narrow slit which served for a window--"is he
not there?--stand out o' the light, and let me look upon him ance
mair. But the darkness is in my ain een," she said, sinking back,
after an earnest gaze upon vacuity--"it's a' ended now.
'Pass breath,
Come death!"
And, sinking back upon her couch of straw, she expired without a
groan.