Why dost not comfort me, and help me out
From this unhallowed and blood-stained hole?
Titus Andronicus
On the next morning, great was the alarm and confusion of the
officers, when they discovered the escape of their prisoner.
Mac-Guffog appeared before Glossin with a head perturbed with
brandy and fear, and incurred a most severe reprimand for neglect
of duty--The resentment of the justice appeared only to be
suspended by his anxiety to recover possession of the prisoner, and
the thief-takers, glad to escape from his awful and incensed
presence, were sent off in every direction (except the right one)
to recover their prisoner, if possible. Glossin particularly
recommended a careful search at the Kaim of Dernecleugh, which was
occasionally occupied under night by vagrants of different
descriptions. Having thus dispersed his myrmidons in various
directions, he himself hastened by devious paths through the Wood
of Warroch, to his appointed interview with Hatteraick, from whom
he hoped to learn at more leisure than last night's conference
admitted, the circumstances attending the return of the heir of
Ellangowan to his native country.
With manoeuvres like those of a fox when he doubles to avoid the
pack, Glossin strove to approach the place of appointment in a
manner which should leave no distinct track of his course. "Would
to Heaven it would snow," he said, looking upward, "and hide these
footprints. Should one of the officers light upon them, he would
run the scent up, like a bloodhound, and surprise us.--I must get
down upon the sea-beach, and contrive to creep along beneath the
rocks."
And accordingly, he descended from the cliffs with some difficulty,
and scrambled along between the rocks and the advancing tide; now
looking up to see if his motions were watched from the rocks above
him, now casting a jealous glance to mark if any boat appeared upon
the sea, from which his course might be discovered.
But even the feelings of selfish apprehension were for a time
superseded, as Glossin passed the spot where Kennedy's body had
been found. It was marked by the fragment of rock which had been
precipitated from the cliff above, either with the body or after
it. The mass was now encrusted with small shell-fish, and
tasselled with tangle and seaweed; but still its shape and
substance were different from those of the other rocks which lay
scattered around. His voluntary walks, it will readily be
believed, had never led to this spot; so that finding himself now
there for the first time after the terrible catastrophe, the scene
at once recurred to his mind with all its accompaniments of
horror. He remembered how, like a guilty thing, gliding from the
neighbouring place of concealment, he had mingled with eagerness,
yet with caution, among the terrified group who surrounded the
corpse, dreading lest any one should ask from whence he came. He
remembered, too, with what conscious fear he had avoided gazing
upon that ghastly spectacle. The wild scream of his patron, "My
bairn! my bairn!" again rang in his ears. "Good God!" he
exclaimed, "land is all I have gained worth the agony of that
moment, and the thousand anxious fears and horrors which have since
embittered my life!--Oh how I wish that I lay where that wretched
man lies, and that he stood here in life and health!--But these
regrets are all too late."
Stifling, therefore, his feelings, he crept forward to the cave,
which was so near the spot where the body was found, that the
smugglers might have heard from their hiding-place the various
conjectures of the bystanders concerning the fate of their victim.
But nothing could be more completely concealed than the entrance to
their asylum. The opening, not larger than that of a fox-earth,
lay in the face of the cliff directly behind a large black rock, or
rather upright stone, which served at once to conceal it from
strangers, and as a mark to point out its situation to those who
used it as a place of retreat. The space between the stone and the
cliff was exceedingly narrow, and being heaped with sand and other
rubbish, the most minute search would not have discovered the mouth
of the cavern, without removing those substances which the tide had
drifted before it. For the purpose of further concealment, it was
usual with the contraband traders who frequented this haunt, after
they had entered, to stuff the mouth with withered seaweed loosely
piled together as if carried there by the waves. Dirk Hatteraick
had not forgotten this precaution.
Glossin, though a bold and hardy man, felt his heart throb, and his
knees knock together, when he prepared to enter this den of secret
iniquity, in order to hold conference with a felon, whom he justly
accounted one of the most desperate and depraved of men. "But he
has no interest to injure me," was his consolatory reflection. He
examined his pocket-pistols, however, before removing the weeds and
entering the cavern, which he did upon hands and knees. The
passage, which at first was low and narrow, just admitting entrance
to a man in a creeping posture, expanded after a few yards into a
high arched vault of considerable width. The bottom, ascending
gradually, was covered with the purest sand. Ere Glossin had got
upon his feet, the hoarse yet suppressed voice of Hatteraick
growled through the recesses of the cave.
"Hagel and donner!--be'st du?"
"Are you in the dark?"
"Dark? der deyvil! ay," said Dirk Hatteraick; "where should I have
a glim?"
"I have brought light;" and Glossin accordingly produced a
tinder-box, and lighted a small lantern.
"You must kindle some fire too, for hold mich der deyvil, lch bin
ganz gefrorne!"
"It is a cold place to be sure," said Glossin, gathering together
some decayed staves of barrels and pieces of wood, which had
perhaps lain in the cavern since Hatteraick was there last.
"Cold? Snow-wasser and hagel! it's perdition--I could only keep
myself alive by rambling up and down this d-d vault, and thinking
about the merry rouses we have had in it."
The flame then began to blaze brightly, and Hatteraick hung his
bronzed visage, and expanded his hard and sinewy hands over it,
with an avidity resembling that of a famished wretch to whom food
is exposed. The light showed his savage and stern features, and
the smoke, which in his agony of cold he seemed to endure almost to
suffocation, after circling round his head, rose to the dim and
rugged roof of the cave, through which it escaped by some secret
rents or clefts in the rock; the same doubtless that afforded air
to the cavern when the tide was in, at which time the aperture to
the sea was filled with water.
"And now I have brought you some breakfast," said Glossin,
producing some cold meat and a flask of spirits. The latter
Hatteraick eagerly seized upon, and applied to his mouth; and,
after a hearty draught, he exclaimed with great rapture, "Das
schmeckt! That is good--that warms the liver!"--Then broke into the
fragment of a High-Dutch song,
"Saufen Bier, und Brante-wein, Schmeissens alle die Fenstern
ein; lch ben liederlich, Du bist liederlich; Sind wir nicht
liederlich Leute a!"
"Well said, my hearty Captain!" cried Glossin, endeavouring
to catch the tone of revelry--
"Gin by pailfuls, wine in rivers,
Dash the window-glass to shivers!
For three wild lads were we, brave boys,
And three wild lads were we;
Thou on the land, and I on the sand,
And jack on the gallows-tree!"
That's it, my bully-boy! Why, you're alive again now!--And now let
us talk about our business."
"Your business, if you please," said Hatteraick; hagel and
donner!--mine was done when I got out of the bilboes."
"Have patience, my good friend;--I'll convince you our interests
are just the same."
Hatteraick gave a short dry cough, and Glossin, after a pause,
proceeded. "How came you to let the boy escape?"
"Why, fluch and blitzen! he was no charge of mine. Lieutenant Brown
gave him to his cousin that's in the Middleburgh house of Vanbeest
and Vanbruggen, and told him some goose's gazette about his being
taken in a skirmish with the land-sharks--he gave him for a
foot-boy. Me let him escape!--the bastard kinchin should have
walked the plank ere I troubled myself about him."
"Well, and was he bred a foot-boy then?"
"Nein, nein; the kinchin got about the old man's heart, and he gave
him his own name, and bred him up in the office, and then sent him
to India--I believe he would have packed him back here, but his
nephew told him it would do up the free trade for many a day, if
the youngster got back to Scotland."
"Do you think the younker knows much of his own origin now?"
"Deyvil!" replied Hatteraick, "how should I tell what he knows now?
But he remembered something of it long. When he was but ten years
old, he persuaded another Satan's limb of an English bastard like
himself to steal my lugger's khan--boat--what do you call it--to
return to his country, as he called it--fire him! Before we could
overtake them, they had the skiff out of channel as far as the
Deurloo--the boat might have been lost."
"I wish to Heaven she had--with him in her" ejaculated Glossin.
"Why, I was so angry myself, that, sapperment! I did give him a tip
over the side--but split him--the comical little devil swam like a
duck; so I made him swim astern for a mile to teach him manners,
and then took him in when he was sinking.--By the knocking
Nicholas! he'll plague you, now he's come over the herring-pond!
When he was so high, he had the spirit of thunder and lightning."
"How did he get back from India?"
"Why, how should I know?--the house there was done up, and that
gave us a shake at Middleburgh, I think--so they sent me again to
see what could be done among my old acquaintances here--for we held
old stories were done away and forgotten. So I had got a pretty
trade on foot within the last two trips; but that stupid houndsfoot
schelm, Brown, has knocked it on the head again, I suppose, with
getting himself shot by the colonel-man.
"Why were you not with them?"
"Why, you see--sapperment! I fear nothing--but it was too far
within land, and I might have been scented."
"True. But to return to this youngster--"
"Ay, ay, donner and blitzen! he's your affair," said the Captain.
"--How do you really know that he is in this country?"
"Why, Gabriel saw him up among the hills."
"Gabriel! who is he?"
A fellow from the gipsies, that, about eighteen years since, was
pressed on board that d-d fellow Pritchard's sloop-of-war. It was
he came off and gave us warning that the Shark was coming round
upon us the day Kennedy was done; and he told us how Kennedy had
given the information. The gipsies and Kennedy had some quarrel
besides. This Gab went to the East Indies in the same ship with
your younker, and, sapperment! knew him well, though the other did
not remember him. Gab kept out of his eye though, as he had served
the States against England, and was a deserter to boot; and he sent
us word directly, that we might know of his being here--though it
does not concern us a rope's end."
"So, then, really, and in sober earnest, he is actually in this
country, Hatteraick, between friend and friend?" asked Glossin
seriously.
"Wetter and donner, yawl What do you take me for?"
"For a bloodthirsty, fearless miscreant!" thought Glossin
internally; but said aloud, "And which of your people was it that
shot young Hazlewood?"
"Sturm-wetter!" said the Captain, "do ye think we were mad?-none of
us, man--Gott! the country was too hot for the trade already with
that d-d frolic of Brown's, attacking what you call Woodbourne
House."
"Why, I am told," said Glossin, "it was Brown who shot Hazlewood?"
"Not our lieutenant, I promise you; for he was laid six feet deep
at Derncleugh the day before the thing happened.--Tausend deyvils,
man I do ye think that he could rise out of the earth to shoot
another man?"
A light here began to break upon Glossin's confusion of ideas. "Did
you not say that the younker, as you call him, goes by the name of
Brown
"Of Brown? yaw-Vanbeest Brown; old Vanbeest Brown, of our Vanbeest
and Vanbruggen, gave him his own name--he did."
"Then," said Glossin, rubbing his hands, "it is he, by Heaven, who
has committed this crime!"
"And what have we to do with that?" demanded Hatteraick.
Glossin paused, and, fertile in expedients, hastily ran over his
project in his own mind, and then drew near the smuggler with a
confidential air. "You know, my dear Hatteraick, it is our
principal business to get rid of this young man?"
"Umph!" answered Dirk Hatteraick-.
"Not," continued Glossin--"not that I would wish any personal harm
to him--if--if--if we can do without. Now, he is liable to be
seized upon by justice, both as bearing the same name with your
lieutenant, who was engaged in that affair at Woodbourne, and for
firing at young Hazlewood with intent to kill or wound."
"Ay, ay," said Dirk Hatteraick; "but what good will that do you?
He'll be loose again as soon as he shows himself to carry other
colours."
"True, my dear Dirk; well noticed, my friend Hatteraick! But there
is ground enough for a temporary imprisonment till he fetch his
proofs from England or elsewhere, my good friend. I understand the
law, Captain Hatteraick, and I'll take it upon me, simple Gilbert
Glossin of Ellangowan, justice of peace for the county of--, to
refuse his bail, if he should offer the best in the country, until
he is brought up for a second examination--now where d'ye think
I'll incarcerate him?
"Hagel and wetter! what do I care?"
"Stay, my friend--you do care a great deal. Do you know your
goods, that were seized and carried to Woodbourne, are now lying in
the Custom-house at Portanferry?" (a small fishing-town).--"Now I
will commit this younker--"
"When you have caught him?"
"Ay, ay, when I have caught him; I shall not be long about that--I
will commit him to the Workhouse, or Bridewell, which you know is
beside the Custom-house."
"Yaw, the Rasp-house; I know it very well."
"I will take care that the red-coats are dispersed through the
country; you land at night with the crew of your lugger, receive
your own goods, and carry the younker Brown with you back to
Flushing. Won't that do?"
"Ay, carry him to Flushing," said the Captain, "or--to America?"
"Ay, ay, my friend."
"Or--to Jericho?"
"Psha! Wherever you have a mind."
"Ay, or--pitch him overboard?"
"Nay, I advise no violence."
"Nein, nein--you leave that to me. Sturm-wetter! I know you of
old. But, hark ye, what am I, Dirk Hatteraick, to be the better of
this?"
"Why, is it not your interest as well as mine?" said Glossin;
"besides, I set you free this morning."
"You set me free!--Donner and deyvil! I set myself free. Besides,
it was all in the way of your profession, and happened a long time
ago, ha, ha, ha!"
"Pshaw! pshaw! don't let us jest; I am not against making a
handsome compliment--but it's your affair as well as mine."
"What do you talk of my affair? is it not you that keep the
bouncer's whole estate from him? Dirk Hatteraick never touched a
stiver of his rents."
"Hush-hush--I tell you it shall be a joint business."
"Why, will ye give me half the kit?"
"What, half the estate?--d'ye mean . Ye should set up house
together at Ellangowan, and take the barony, ridge about?"
"Sturm-wetter, no! but you might give me half the value--half the
gelt. Live with you? Nein--I would have a lusthaus of mine own on
the Middleburgh dyke, and a blumengarten like a burgomaster's."
"Ay, and a wooden lion at the door, and a painted sentinel in the
garden, with a pipe in his mouth!--But, hark ye, Hatteraick; what
will all the tulips, and flower-gardens, and pleasure-houses in the
Netherlands do for you, if you are hanged here in Scotland?"
Hatteraick's countenance fell. "Der deyvil! hanged?"
"Ay, hanged, meinheer Captain. The devil can scarce save Dirk
Hatteraick from being hanged for a murderer and kidnapper, if the
younker of Ellangowan should settle in this country, and if the
gallant Captain chances to be caught here re-establishing his fair
trade! And I won't say, but, as peace is now so much talked of,
their High Mightinesses may not hand him over to oblige their new
allies, even if he remained in faderiand."
"Poz bagel blitzen and donner! I--I doubt you say true."
"Not," said Glossin, perceiving he had made the desired impression,
"not that I am against being civil;" and he slid into Hatteraick's
passive hand a bank-note of some value.
"Is this all?" said the smuggler; "you had the price of half a
cargo for winking at our job, and made us do your business too."
"But, my good friend, you forget--in this case you will recover all
your own goods."
"Ay, at the risk of all our own necks--we could do that without
you."
"I doubt that, Captain Hatteraick," said Glossin dryly, "because
you would probably find a dozen red-coats at the Custom-house, whom
it must be my business, if we agree about this matter, to have
removed. Come, come, I will be as liberal as I can, but you should
have a conscience."
"Now strafe mich der deyfel!--this provokes me more than all the
rest.--You rob and you murder, and you want me to rob and murder,
and play the silver-cooper, or kidnapper, as you call it, a dozen
times over, and then, hagel and wind-sturm! you speak to me of
conscience!--Can you think of no fairer way of getting rid of this
unlucky lad?"
"No, meinheer; but as I commit him to your charge--"
"To my charge--to the charge of steel and gunpowder! and--well,
if it must be, it must--but you have a tolerably good guess what's
like to come of it."
"Oh, my dear friend, I trust no degree of severity will be
necessary," replied Glossin.
"Severity!" said the fellow, with a kind of groan, I wish you had
had my dreams when I first came to this dog-hole, and tried to
sleep among the dry seaweed.--First, there was that d-d fellow
there, with his broken back, sprawling as he did when I hurled the
rock over atop on him--ha, ha, you would have sworn he was lying on
the floor where you stand, wriggling like a crushed frog--and
then--"
"Nay, my friend," said Glossin, interrupting him, what signifies
going over this nonsense?--If you are turned chicken-hearted, why,
the game's up, that's all--the game's up with us both."
"Chicken-hearted?--No. I have not lived so long upon the account
to start at last, neither for Devil nor Dutchman."
Well then, take another schnaps--the cold's at your heart
still.--And now tell me, are any of your old crew with you?"
"Nein--all dead, shot, hanged, drowned, and damned. Brown was the
last--all dead, but Gipsy Gab, and he would go off the country for
a spill of money--or he'll be quiet for his own sake--or old Meg,
his aunt, will keep him quiet for hers."
"Which Meg?"
"Meg Merrilies, the old devil's limb of a gipsy witch."
"Is she still alive?'
"Yaw."
"And in this country?"
"And in this country. She was at the Kaim of Derncleugh, at
Vanbeest Brown's last wake, as they call it, the other night, with
two of my people, and some of her own blasted gipsies."
"That's another breaker ahead, Captain! Will she not squeak, think
ye?"
"Not she--she won't start--she swore by the salmon, [*The great and
inviolable oath of the strolling tribes] if we did the kinchin no
harm, she would never tell how the gauger got it. Why, man, though
I gave her a wipe with my hanger in the heat of the matter, and cut
her arm, and though she was so long after in trouble about it up at
your borough-town there, der deyvil! old Meg was as true as steel."
"Why, that's true, as you say," replied Glossin. "And yet if she
could be carried over to Zealand, or Hamburg, or--or--anywhere
else, you know, it were as well."
Hatteraick jumped upright upon his feet, and looked at Glossin from
head to heel.--"I don't see the goat's foot," he said, "and yet he
must be the very deyvil!--But Meg Merrilies is closer yet with the
Kobold than you are--ay, and I had never such weather as after
having drawn her blood. Nein, nein, I'll meddle with her no
more-she's a witch of the fiend--a real deyvil's kind--but that's
her affair. Donner and wetter! I'll neither make nor meddle--
that's her work.--But for the rest--why, if I thought the trade
would not suffer, I would soon rid you of the younker, if you send
me word when he's under embargo."
In brief and undertones the two worthy associates concerted their
enterprise, and agreed at which of his haunts Hatteraick should be
heard of. The stay of his lugger on the coast was not difficult,
as there were no king's vessels there at the time.