Guy Mannering by Walter Scott (good beach reads TXT) 📖

property, which was interposed between it and Woodbourne. Besides, the Dominie went astray more than once, and met with brooks swollen into torrents by the melting of the snow, where he, honest man, had only the summer-recollection of little trickling rills.

At length, however, he reached the woods which he had made the object of his excursion, and traversed them with care, muddling his disturbed brains with vague efforts to recall every circumstance of the catastrophe. It will readily be supposed that the influence of local situation and association was inadequate to produce conclusions different from those which he had formed under the immediate pressure of the occurrences themselves. "With many a weary sigh, therefore, and many a groan," the poor Dominie returned from his hopeless pilgrimage, and weariedly plodded his way towards Woodbourne, debating at times in his altered mind a question which was forced upon him by the cravings of an appetite rather of the keenest, namely, whether he had breakfasted that morning or no?—It was in this twilight humour, now thinking of the loss of the child, then involuntarily compelled to meditate upon the somewhat incongruous subject of hung-beef, rolls, and butter, that his route, which was different from that which he had taken in the morning, conducted him past the small ruined—tower, or rather vestige of a tower, called by the country people the Kaim of Derncleugh.

The reader may recollect the description of this ruin in the twenty-seventh chapter of this narrative, as the vault in which young Bertram, under the auspices of Meg Merrilies, witnessed the death of Hatteraick's lieutenant. The tradition of the country added ghostly terrors to the natural awe inspired by the situation of this place, which terrors the gipsies, who so long inhabited the vicinity, had probably invented, or at least propagated, for their own advantage. It was said that, during the times of the Galwegian independence, one Hanlon MacDingawaie, brother to the reigning chief, Knarth MacDingawaie, murdered his brother and sovereign, in order to usurp the principality from his infant nephew, and that being pursued for vengeance by the faithful allies and retainers of the house, who espoused the cause of the lawful heir, he was compelled to retreat, with a few followers whom he had involved in his crime, to his impregnable tower called the Kaim of Derncleugh, where he defended himself until nearly reduced by famine, when, setting fire to the place, he and the small remaining garrison desperately perished by their own swords, rather than fall into the hands of their exasperated enemies. This tragedy, which, considering the wild times wherein it was placed, might have some foundation in truth, was larded with many legends of superstition and diablerie, so that most of the peasants of the neighbourhood, if benighted, would rather have chosen to make a considerable circuit, than pass these haunted walls. The lights, often seen around the tower when used as the rendezvous of the lawless characters by whom it was occasionally frequented, were accounted for, under authority of these tales of witchery, in a manner at once convenient for the private parties concerned, and satisfactory to the public.

Now, it must be confessed, that our friend Sampson, although a profound scholar and mathematician, had not travelled so far in philosophy as to doubt the reality of witchcraft or apparitions. Born indeed at a time when a doubt in the existence of witches was interpreted as equivalent to a justification of their infernal practices, a belief of such legends had been impressed upon the Dominie as an article indivisible from his religious faith, and perhaps it would have been equally difficult to have induced him to doubt the one as the other. With these feelings, and in a thick misty day, which was already drawing to its close, Dominie Sampson did not pass the Kaim of Derncleugh without some feelings of tacit horror.

What then was his astonishment, when, on passing the door—that door which was supposed to have been placed there by one of the latter Lairds of Ellangowan to prevent presumptuous strangers from incurring the dangers of the haunted vault—that door, supposed to be always locked, and the key of which was popularly said to be deposited with the presbytery—that door, that very door, opened suddenly, and the figure of Meg Merrilies, well known, though not seen for many a revolving year, was placed at once before the eyes of the startled Dominie! She stood immediately before him in the footpath, confronting him so absolutely, that he could not avoid her except by fairly turning back, which his manhood prevented him from thinking of.

"I kenn'd ye wad be here," she said with her harsh and hollow voice "I ken wha ye seek; but ye maun do my bidding."

"Get thee behind me!" said the alarmed Dominie—"Avoid ye!— Conjuro te, scelestissima—nequissima—spurcissima—iniquissima— atque miserrim—conjuro te!!!"—Meg stood her ground against this tremendous volley of superlatives, which Sampson hawked up from the pit of his stomach, and hurled at her in thunder. "Is the carl daft," she said, "wi' his glamour?"

"Conjuro," continued the Dominie, "abjuro contestor, atque viriliter impero tibi!"—

"What, in the name of Sathan, are ye feared for, wi' your French gibberish, that would make a dog sick? Listen, ye stickit stibbler, [*A broken-down clerical probationer.] to what I tell ye, or ye sall rue it while there's a limb o' ye hings to anither!—Tell Colonel Mannering that I ken he's seeking me. He kens, and I ken, that the blood will be wiped out, and the lost will be found,

"And Bertram's right and Bertram's mlght Shall meet on Ellangowan height.

Hae, there's a letter to him, I was gaun to send it in another way.—I canna write mysell; but I hae them that will baith write and read, and ride and rin for me. Tell him the time's coming now, and the weird's dreed [*The destiny is fulfilled.] and the wheel's turning. Bid him look at the stars as he has looked at them before.—Will ye mind a' this?"

"Assuredly," said the Dominie, "I am dubious—for, woman, I am perturbed at thy words, and my flesh quakes to hear thee."

"'They'll do you nae ill though, and maybe muckle gude."

"Avoid ye! I desire no good that comes by unlawful means."

"Fule-body that thou art," said Meg, stepping up to him with a frown of indignation that made her dark eyes flash like lamps from under her bent brows,—"Fule-body! if I meant ye wrang, couldna I clod [*Hurl.] ye ower that craig [*Steep rock.], and wad man ken how ye cam by your end mair than Frank Kennedy? Hear ye that, ye worricow?" [*Scarecrow.]

"In the name of all that is good," said the Dominie, recoiling, and pointing his long pewter-headed walking-cane like a javelin at the supposed sorceress,—"in the name of all that is good, bide off hands! I will not be handled woman, stand off, upon thine own proper peril!—desist, I say—I am strong—lo, I will resist!"—Here his speech was cut short; for Meg, armed with supernatural strength, (as the Dominie asserted), broke in upon his guard, put by a thrust which he made at her with his cane, and lifted him into the vault, "as easily," said he, "as I could sway a Kitchen's Atlas."

"Sit down there," she said, pushing the half-throttled preacher with some violence against a broken chair,—"sit down there, and gather your wind and your senses, ye black barrow-tram [*Limb.] o' the kirk that ye are—Are ye fou or fasting?"

"Fasting—from all but sin," answered the Dominie, who, recovering his voice, and finding his exorcisms only served to exasperate the intractable sorceress, thought it best to affect complaisance and submission, inwardly conning over, however, the wholesome conjurations which he durst no longer utter aloud. But as the Dominie's brain was by no means equal to carry on two trains of ideas at the same time, a word or two of his mental exercise sometimes escaped, and mingled with his uttered speech in a manner ludicrous enough, especially as the poor man shrunk himself together after every escape of the kind, from terror of the effect it might produce upon the irritable feelings of the witch.

Meg, in the meanwhile, went to a great black cauldron that was boiling on a fire on the floor, and, lifting the lid, an odour was diffused through the vault, which, if the vapours of a witch's cauldron could in aught be trusted, promised better things than the hell-broth which such vessels are usually supposed to contain. It was in fact the savour of a goodly stew, composed of fowls, hares, partridges, and moorgame, boiled, in a large mess with potatoes, onions, and leeks, and from the size of the cauldron, appeared to be prepared for half a dozen people at least. "So ye hae eat naething a' day?" said Meg, heaping a large portion of this mess into a brown dish, and strewing it savourily with salt and pepper. [*We must again have recourse to the contribution to Blackwood's Magazine, April 1817 :—

"To the admirers of good eating, Gipsy cookery seems to have little to recommend it. I can assure you, however, that the cook of a nobleman of high distinction, a person who never reads even a novel without an eye to the enlargement of the culinary science, has added to the Almanach des Gourmands, a certain Potage a la Meg Merrilies de Dernclough, consisting of game and poultry of all kinds, stewed with vegetables into a soup, which rivals in savour and richness the gallant messes of Comacho's wedding; and which the Baron of Bradwardine would certainly have reckoned among the Epulae, lautiores."

[The artist alluded to in this passage in Mons. Florence, cook to Henry and Charles, late Dukes of Buccleuch, and of high distinction in his profession.]

"Nothing," answered the Dominie—"scelestissima!—that is—gudewife."

"Hae then," said she, placing the dish before him, "there's what will warm your heart."

"I do not hunger—malefica—that is to say—Mrs. Merrilies!" for he said unto himself, ,the savour is sweet, but it bath been cooked by a Canidia or an Ericthoe."

"If ye dinna eat instantly, and put some saul in ye, by the bread and the salt, I'll put it down your throat wi' the cutty [*Short.] spoon, scaulding as it is, and whether ye will or no. Gape, sinner, and swallow!"

Sampson, afraid of eye of newt, and toe of frog, tigers' chaudrons, and so forth, had determined not to venture; but the smell of the stew was fast melting his obstinacy, which flowed from his chops as it were in streams of water, and the witch's threats decided him to feed. Hunger and fear are excellent casuists.

"Saul," said Hunger, "feasted with the witch of Endor."—"And," quoth Fear, "the salt which she sprinkled upon the food showeth plainly it is not a necromantic banquet, in which that seasoning never occurs."—"And, besides," says Hunger, after the first spoonful, "it is savoury and refreshing viands."

"So ye like the meat?" said the hostess. "Yea," answered the Dominie, "and I give thee thanks-sceleratissima!—which means—Mrs. Margaret."

"Aweel, eat your fill; but an ye kenn'd how it was gotten, ye' maybe wadna like it sae weel. "Sampson's spoon dropped, in the act of conveying its load to his mouth. There's been mony a moon-light watch to bring a' that trade thegither," continued Meg,—"the folk that are to eat that dinner thought little o' your game-laws."

"Is that all?" thought Sampson, resuming his spoon, and shovelling away manfully; "I will not lack my food upon that argument."

"Now, ye maun tak a dram?"

"I will," quoth Sampson—"conjuro te—that is, I thank you heartily," for he thought to himself, in for a penny, in for a pound; and he fairly drank the witch's health, in a cupful of brandy. When he had put this cope-stone upon Meg's good cheer, he felt, as he said, "mightily elevated, and afraid of no evil which could befall unto him."

"Will ye remember my errand now?" said Meg Merrilies; "I ken by the cast o' your ee that ye're anither man than when you cam in."

"I will, Mrs. Margaret," repeated Sampson stoutly "I will deliver unto him the sealed yepistle, and will add what you please to send by word of mouth."

"Then I'll make it short," says Meg. "Tell him to look at the stars without fail this night, and to do what I desire him in that letter, as he would wish

  "That Bertram's right and Bertram's might
  Should meet on Ellangowan height.

I have seen him twice when he saw na me; I ken when he was in this country first, and I ken what's brought him back again. Up, an' to the gate! ye're ower lang here-follow me."

Sampson followed the sibyl accordingly, who guided him about a quarter of a mile through the woods, by a shorter cut than he could have found for himself; they then entered upon the common, Meg still marching before him at a