IT was seventeen long years after the murder of Frank Kennedy and the
disappearance of little Harry Bertram when Guy Mannering, now a soldier
famous for his wars in the East, penetrated a second time into Galloway.
His object was to visit the family of Ellangowan, and secretly, also, to
find out for himself in what way his random prophesies had worked out.
But he arrived at an unfortunate time. He found that, chiefly by the
plotting and deceit of a rascally lawyer, one Gilbert Glossin, the
Bertrams were on the point of being sold out of Ellangowan. All their
money had been lost, and the sale of the estate was being forced on by
the rascally lawyer Glossin for his own ends.
The old man Godfrey Bertram also was very near his end. And indeed on
the very day of the sale, and while Mannering was paying his respects to
his former host, the sight of Glossin so enraged the feeble old man that
he was taken with a violent passion, falling back in his chair and dying
in a few minutes.
Mannering, whose heart was greatly touched, was most anxious to do all
that he could to assist Lucy Bertram, the old man's daughter, but he was
compelled by an urgent summons to return into England. It had been his
intention to save the estate of Ellangowan from the clutches of the
scoundrel Glossin by buying it himself, but the drunkenness of a postboy
whom he had sent with a letter to Mr. Mac-Morlan, the lawyer in charge
of the sale, defeated his intentions, so that Ellangowan became the
property of the traitor. So young Lucy Bertram and Dominie Sampson (who
refused to be separated from her) became for the moment inmates of Mr.
Mac-Morlan's house. The Dominie found a pupil or two in the
neighbourhood that he might not be chargeable to his dear Lucy or her
friend Mr. Mac-Morlan. And so, in the twenty-first year after the birth
of an heir, and after Mannering's prophecy concerning him, there seemed
an end to the ancient house of the Bertrams of Ellangowan.
During these years, Colonel Mannering also had a tale to tell. Wedded
early to the wife of his youth and his heart, he had gone to India in
the service of the Honourable, the East India Company. There by his
valour and talent he had rapidly acquired both wealth and position. But
during the twenty-first year an event occurred which gave him a distaste
for the land of his adoption, and he had come back to his native country
with the idea of settling down, far away from old memories and new
entanglements.
In a duel which he had fought in India with a young man named Brown--a
brave youth of no position, who had offended Mannering by his attentions
to his daughter, and by establishing himself in his house as a friend of
the family--he had left Brown for dead on the field, hardly escaping
himself with his life from a sudden attack of the armed banditti who, in
the India of that day, were always hovering round desert places. The
shock of that morning had so told on the health of Mannering's wife that
she died shortly afterwards, leaving him with one daughter, Julia--a
proud, sprightly, sentimental girl, whom he had brought home, and placed
under the care of a friend named Mervyn, whose house stood upon one of
the Cumberland lakes.
So it came about that when Mannering was in Scotland, he received a
letter from his friend which took him to Mervyn Hall as fast as
horse-flesh could carry him.
His friend wrote, as he was careful to say, without his wife's
knowledge. Mr. Mervyn told Colonel Mannering that he was certain that
his daughter Julia was receiving secret visits from some one whom she
did not dare to see openly. Not only were there long solitary walks and
hill-climbings, but on several occasions he had heard up the lake at
midnight, as if under her windows, a flageolet playing a little Indian
air to which Julia Mannering was partial. This was evidently a signal,
for a boat had been seen hastily crossing the lake, and the sash of
Julia's window had been heard to shut down at the first alarm. Mr.
Mervyn said that, little as he liked playing the part of tale-bearer, he
felt that Julia was under his care, and he would not deserve his old
name of Downright Dunstable if he did not inform her father of what he
had discovered. Julia, he said, was both a charming and high spirited
girl, but she was too much her own father's daughter to be without
romantic ideas. On the whole, concluded Mr. Mervyn, it behooved the
Colonel to come at once to Mervyn Hall and look after his own property.
This was the letter which, put into his hands at a seaport town in
Scotland, lost Mannering the estate of Ellangowan, and threw the ancient
seat of many generations of Bertrams into the clutches of the
scoundrelly Glossin. For Colonel Mannering instantly posted off to the
south, having first of all sent despatches to Mr. Mac-Morlan by the
untrustworthy postilion--the same who arrived a day too late for the
sale.
When Colonel Mannering first went to Mervyn Hall, he could make nothing
of the case. Of course he believed Brown to have died by his hand in
India, and he could find no traces of any other man likely to be making
love to his daughter. Nevertheless he had brought back a plan with him
from Scotland, which, he thought, would put an end to all future
difficulties. The helplessness of Lucy Bertram had moved his heart.
Besides, he was more amused than he cared to own by the originality of
the Dominie. He had easily obtained, by means of Mr. Mac-Morlan, a
furnished house in the neighbourhood of Ellangowan, and he resolved for
a time at least to repose himself there after his campaigns. His
daughter Julia would thus have a companion in Lucy Bertram, and it was
easy to provide the Dominie with an occupation. For the library of an
uncle of Mannering's, who had been a learned bishop of the Church of
England, had been willed to him. The Dominie was the very man to put the
books in order. So indeed it was arranged, after some saucy remarks from
Miss Mannering as to the supposed Scottish accent and probable red hair
of her companion.
Then Colonel Mannering, accustomed to do nothing by halves, sent down
his directions about Dominie Sampson, whose heart indeed would have been
broken if he had been separated from the young mistress over whom he had
watched from childhood.
"Let the poor man be properly dressed," wrote the Colonel to Mr.
Mac-Morlan, "and let him accompany his young lady to Woodbourne!"
The dressing of Dominie Sampson was, however, easier said than done. For
it would hurt the pride of the Dominie to have clothes presented to him
as to a schoolboy. But Lucy Bertram soon settled the matter. The
Dominie, she said, would never notice the difference, if they put one
garment at a time into his sleeping room and took away the other. This
was what her father had always done when the wardrobe of his dependent
needed renewing. Nor had the Dominie ever showed the least consciousness
of the change.
So said, so done. A good tailor, having come and looked Mr. Sampson
over, readily agreed to provide him with two excellent suits, one black
and one raven grey, such as would fit the Dominie as well as a man of
such an out-of-the-way build could be fitted by merely human needles and
shears.
The Dominie, when completely equipped, made no remark upon the
change--further than that, in his opinion, the air of a seaport town
like Kippletringan seemed to be favourable to wearing-apparel.
It was the depth of winter when the Mannerings arrived at Woodbourne.
All were a little anxious. Even Dominie Sampson longed to be at his
books, and going repeatedly to the windows demanded, "Why tarry the
wheels of their chariot?" But when at last they came, Lucy and Julia
Bertram were soon friends, while the Dominie stood with uplifted hands,
exclaiming, "Prodeegious! Prodeegious!" as, one after another, the
thirty or forty cart-loads of books were deposited on the library floor
ready to his hand. His arms flapped like windmills, and the uncouth
scholar counted himself the happiest man on earth as he began to
arrange the great volumes on the shelves. Not that he got on very
quickly. For he wrote out the catalogue in his best running-hand. He put
the books on the shelves as carefully as if they had been old and
precious china. Yet in spite of the Dominie's zeal, his labours advanced
but slowly. Often he would chance to open a volume when halfway up the
ladder. Then, his eye falling upon some entrancing passage, he would
stand there transfixed, oblivious of the flight of time, till a
serving-maid pulled his skirts to tell him dinner was waiting. He would
then bolt his food in three-inch squares, and rush back to the library,
often with his dinner napkin still tied round his neck like a pinafore.
Thus, for the first time in his life, Dominie Sampson was perfectly
content.
[Illustration: "HIS eye falling upon some entrancing passage, he would
stand there transfixed, oblivious of the flight of time, till a
serving-maid pulled his skirts to tell him dinner was waiting."]