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 Derncleugh,
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 foot-prints. 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superseded, as Glossin passed the spot where Kennedy's body had been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, 'and is all I
have gained worth the agony of that moment, and the thousand anxious
fears and horrors which have since embittered my life! O 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, Ich 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 Brantewein,
Schmeissen alle die Fenstern ein;
Ich bin 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 footboy. 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 I 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 hounds-foot schelm, Brown,
has knocked it on the head again, I suppose, with getting himself shot
by the colonel-man.'
'Why were not you 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, yaw! 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?'
'Sturmwetter!' 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! 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 redcoats 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. Sturmwetter! 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 younker'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 kitt?'
'What, half the estate? D'ye mean we should set up house together at
Ellangowan, and take the barony ridge about?'
'Sturmwetter, 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, mein Herr 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 reestablishing 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 faderland.'
'Poz hagel, 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, drily;' because you
would probably find a-'dozen'redcoats 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 windsturm! you speak to me of conscience! Can you think
of no fairer way of getting rid of this unlucky lad?'
'No, mein Herr; 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.'
'O, 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 a-top 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, [Footnote: The
great and invoidable 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 Hamburgh, 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 under tones 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.