Die, prophet! in thy speech;
For this, among the rest, was I ordained.
Henry VI. Part III.
The progress of the Borderer, who, as we have said, was the last of the
party, was fearfully arrested by a hand, which caught hold of his leg
as he dragged his long limbs after him in silence and perturbation
through the low and narrow entrance of the subterranean passage. The
steel heart of the bold yeoman had well-nigh given way, and he
suppressed with difficulty a shout, which, in the defenceless posture
and situation which they then occupied, might have cost all their
lives. He contented himself, however, with extricating his foot from
the grasp of this unexpected follower. 'Be still,' said a voice behind
him, releasing him; 'I am a friend--Charles Hazlewood.'
These words were uttered in a very low voice, but they produced sound
enough to startle Meg Merrilies, who led the van, and who, having
already gained the place where the cavern expanded, had risen upon her
feet. She began, as if to confound any listening ear, to growl, to
mutter, and to sing aloud, and at the same time to make a bustle among
some brushwood which was now heaped in the cave.
'Here, beldam, deyvil's kind,' growled the harsh voice of Dirk
Hatteraick from the inside of his den, 'what makest thou there?'
'Laying the roughies to keep the cauld wind frae you, ye desperate
do-nae-good. Ye're e'en ower weel off, and wotsna; it will be otherwise
soon.'
'Have you brought me the brandy, and any news of my people?' said Dirk
Hatteraick.
'There's the flask for ye. Your people--dispersed, broken, gone, or cut
to ribbands by the redcoats.'
'Der deyvil! this coast is fatal to me.'
'Ye may hae mair reason to say sae.'
While this dialogue went forward, Bertram and Dinmont had both gained
the interior of the cave and assumed an erect position. The only light
which illuminated its rugged and sable precincts was a quantity of wood
burnt to charcoal in an iron grate, such as they use in spearing salmon
by night. On these red embers Hatteraick from time to time threw a
handful of twigs or splintered wood; but these, even when they blazed
up, afforded a light much disproportioned to the extent of the cavern;
and, as its principal inhabitant lay upon the side of the grate most
remote from the entrance, it was not easy for him to discover
distinctly objects which lay in that direction. The intruders,
therefore, whose number was now augmented unexpectedly to three, stood
behind the loosely-piled branches with little risk of discovery.
Dinmont had the sense to keep back Hazlewood with one hand till he
whispered to Bertram, 'A friend--young Hazlewood.'
It was no time for following up the introduction, and they all stood as
still as the rocks around them, obscured behind the pile of brushwood,
which had been probably placed there to break the cold wind from the
sea, without totally intercepting the supply of air. The branches were
laid so loosely above each other that, looking through them towards the
light of the fire-grate, they could easily discover what passed in its
vicinity, although a much stronger degree of illumination than it
afforded would not have enabled the persons placed near the bottom of
the cave to have descried them in the position which they occupied.
The scene, independent of the peculiar moral interest and personal
danger which attended it, had, from the effect of the light and shade
on the uncommon objects which it exhibited, an appearance emphatically
dismal. The light in the fire-grate was the dark-red glare of charcoal
in a state of ignition, relieved from time to time by a transient flame
of a more vivid or duskier light, as the fuel with which Dirk
Hatteraick fed his fire was better or worse fitted for his purpose. Now
a dark cloud of stifling smoke rose up to the roof of the cavern, and
then lighted into a reluctant and sullen blaze, which flashed wavering
up the pillar of smoke, and was suddenly rendered brighter and more
lively by some drier fuel, or perhaps some splintered fir-timber, which
at once converted the smoke into flame. By such fitful irradiation they
could see, more or less distinctly, the form of Hatteraick, whose
savage and rugged cast of features, now rendered yet more ferocious by
the circumstances of his situation and the deep gloom of his mind,
assorted well with the rugged and broken vault, which rose in a rude
arch over and around him. The form of Meg Merrilies, which stalked
about him, sometimes in the light, sometimes partially obscured in the
smoke or darkness, contrasted strongly with the sitting figure of
Hatteraick as he bent over the flame, and from his stationary posture
was constantly visible to the spectator, while that of the female
flitted around, appearing or disappearing like a spectre.
Bertram felt his blood boil at the sight of Hatteraick. He remembered
him well under the name of Jansen, which the smuggler had adopted after
the death of Kennedy; and he remembered also that this Jansen, and his
mate Brown, the same who was shot at Woodbourne, had been the brutal
tyrants of his infancy. Bertram knew farther, from piecing his own
imperfect recollections with the narratives of Mannering and Pleydell,
that this man was the prime agent in the act of violence which tore him
from his family and country, and had exposed him to so many distresses
and dangers. A thousand exasperating reflections rose within his bosom;
and he could hardly refrain from rushing upon Hatteraick and blowing
his brains out.
At the same time this would have been no safe adventure. The flame, as
it rose and fell, while it displayed the strong, muscular, and
broad-chested frame of the ruffian, glanced also upon two brace of
pistols in his belt, and upon the hilt of his cutlass: it was not to be
doubted that his desperation was commensurate with his personal
strength and means of resistance. Both, indeed, were inadequate to
encounter the combined power of two such men as Bertram himself and his
friend Dinmont, without reckoning their unexpected assistant Hazlewood,
who was unarmed, and of a slighter make; but Bertram felt, on a
moment's reflection, that there would be neither sense nor valour in
anticipating the hangman's office, and he considered the importance of
making Hatteraick prisoner alive. He therefore repressed his
indignation, and awaited what should pass between the ruffian and his
gipsy guide.
'And how are ye now?' said the harsh and discordant tones of his female
attendant.' Said I not, it would come upon you--ay, and in this very
cave, where ye harboured after the deed?'
'Wetter and sturm, ye hag!' replied Hatteraick, 'keep your deyvil's
matins till they're wanted. Have you seen Glossin?'
'No,' replied Meg Merrilies; 'you've missed your blow, ye
blood-spiller! and ye have nothing to expect from the tempter.'
'Hagel!' exclaimed the ruffian, 'if I had him but by the throat! And
what am I to do then?'
'Do?' answered the gipsy; 'die like a man, or be hanged like a dog!'
'Hanged, ye hag of Satan! The hemp's not sown that shall hang me.'
'It's sown, and it's grown, and it's heckled, and it's twisted. Did I
not tell ye, when ye wad take away the boy Harry Bertram, in spite of
my prayers,--did I not say he would come back when he had dree'd his
weird in foreign land till his twenty-first year? Did I not say the
auld fire would burn down to a spark, but wad kindle again?'
'Well, mother, you did say so,' said Hatteraick, in a tone that had
something of despair in its accents; 'and, donner and blitzen! I
believe you spoke the truth. That younker of Ellangowan has been a rock
ahead to me all my life! And now, with Glossin's cursed contrivance, my
crew have been cut off, my boats destroyed, and I daresay the lugger's
taken; there were not men enough left on board to work her, far less to
fight her--a dredge-boat might have taken her. And what will the owners
say? Hagel and sturm! I shall never dare go back again to Flushing.'
'You'll never need,' said the gipsy.
'What are you doing there,' said her companion; 'and what makes you say
that?'
During this dialogue Meg was heaping some flax loosely together. Before
answer to this question she dropped a firebrand upon the flax, which
had been previously steeped in some spirituous liquor, for it instantly
caught fire and rose in a vivid pyramid of the most brilliant light up
to the very top of the vault. As it ascended Meg answered the ruffian's
question in a firm and steady voice: 'BECAUSE THE HOUR'S COME, AND THE
MAN.'
At the appointed signal Bertram and Dinmont sprung over the brushwood
and rushed upon Hatteraick. Hazlewood, unacquainted with their plan of
assault, was a moment later. The ruffian, who instantly saw he was
betrayed, turned his first vengeance on Meg Merrilies, at whom he
discharged a pistol. She fell with a piercing and dreadful cry between
the shriek of pain and the sound of laughter when at its highest and
most suffocating height. 'I kenn'd it would be this way,' she said.
Bertram, in his haste, slipped his foot upon the uneven rock which
floored the cave--a fortunate stumble, for Hatteraick's second bullet
whistled over him with so true and steady an aim that, had he been
standing upright, it must have lodged in his brain. Ere the smuggler
could draw another pistol, Dinmont closed with him, and endeavoured by
main force to pinion down his arms. Such, however, was the wretch's
personal strength, joined to the efforts of his despair, that, in spite
of the gigantic force with which the Borderer grappled him, he dragged
Dinmont through the blazing flax, and had almost succeeded in drawing a
third pistol, which might have proved fatal to the honest farmer, had
not Bertram, as well as Hazlewood, come to his assistance, when, by
main force, and no ordinary exertion of it, they threw Hatteraick on
the ground, disarmed him, and bound him. This scuffle, though it takes
up some time in the narrative, passed in less than a single minute.
When he was fairly mastered, after one or two desperate and almost
convulsionary struggles, the ruffian lay perfectly still and silent.
'He's gaun to die game ony how,' said Dinmont; 'weel, I like him na the
waur for that.'
This observation honest Dandie made while he was shaking the blazing
flax from his rough coat and shaggy black hair, some of which had been
singed in the scuffle. 'He is quiet now,' said Bertram; 'stay by him
and do not permit him to stir till I see whether the poor woman be
alive or dead.' With Hazlewood's assistance he raised Meg Merrilies.
'I kenn'd it would be this way,' she muttered, 'and it's e'en this way
that it should be.'
The ball had penetrated the breast below the throat. It did not bleed
much externally; but Bertram, accustomed to see gunshot wounds, thought
it the more alarming. 'Good God! what shall we do for this poor woman?'
said he to Hazlewood, the circumstances superseding the necessity of
previous explanation or introduction to each other.
'My horse stands tied above in the wood,' said Hazlewood. 'I have been
watching you these two hours. I will ride off for some assistants that
may be trusted. Meanwhile, you had better defend the mouth of the
cavern against every one until I return.' He hastened away. Bertram,
after binding Meg Merrilies's wound as well as he could, took station
near the mouth of the cave with a cocked pistol in his hand; Dinmont
continued to watch Hatteraick, keeping a grasp like that of Hercules on
his breast. There was a dead silence in the cavern, only interrupted by
the low and suppressed moaning of the wounded female and by the hard
breathing of the prisoner.