It is not madness

That I have utter’d, bring me to the test,

And I the matter will re-word, which madness

Would gambol from.

Hamlet.

As Mr. Sampson crossed the hall with a bewildered look, Mrs. Allan, the good housekeeper, who, with the reverent attention which is usually rendered to the clergy in Scotland, was on the watch for his return, sallied forth to meet him — ‘What’s this o’t now, Mr. Sampson, this is waur than ever! Ye’ll really do yoursell some injury wi’ these lang fasts; naething’s sae hurtful to the stamach, Mr. Sampson. If ye would but put some peppermint draps in your pocket, or let Barnes cut ye a sandwich.’

‘Avoid thee!’ quoth the Dominie, his mind running still upon his interview with Meg Merrilies, and making for the dining-parlour.

‘Na, ye needna gang in there, the cloth’s been removed an hour syne, and the Colonel’s at his wine; but just step into my room, I have a nice steak that the cook will do in a moment.’

‘Exorciso te!’ said Sampson; ‘that is, I have dined.’

‘Dined! it’s impossible; wha can ye hae dined wi’, you that gangs out nae gate?’

‘With Beelzebub, I believe,’ said the minister.

‘Na, then he’s bewitched for certain,’ said the housekeeper, letting go her hold; ‘he’s bewitched, or he’s daft, and ony way the Colonel maun just guide him his ain gate. Wae’s me! Hech, sirs! It’s a sair thing to see learning bring folk to this!’ And with this compassionate ejaculation she retreated into her own premises.

The object of her commiseration had by this time entered the dining-parlour, where his appearance gave great surprise. He was mud up to the shoulders, and the natural paleness of his hue was twice as cadaverous as usual, through terror, fatigue, and perturbation of mind.

‘What on earth is the meaning of this, Mr. Sampson?’ said Mannering, who observed Miss Bertram looking much alarmed for her simple but attached friend.

‘Exorciso,’ said the Dominie.

‘How, sir?’ replied the astonished Colonel.

‘I crave pardon, honourable sir! but my wits —— ’

‘Are gone a wool-gathering, I think; pray, Mr. Sampson, collect yourself, and let me know the meaning of all this.’

Sampson was about to reply, but finding his Latin formula of exorcism still came most readily to his tongue, he prudently desisted from the attempt, and put the scrap of paper which he had received from the gipsy into Mannering’s hand, who broke the seal and read it with surprise. ‘This seems to be some jest,’ he said, ‘and a very dull one.’

‘It came from no jesting person,’ said Mr. Sampson.

‘From whom then did it come?’ demanded Mannering.

The Dominie, who often displayed some delicacy of recollection in cases where Miss Bertram had an interest, remembered the painful circumstances connected with Meg Merrilies, looked at the young ladies, and remained silent. ‘We will join you at the tea-table in an instant, Julia,’ said the Colonel; ‘I see that Mr. Sampson wishes to speak to me alone. And now they are gone, what, in Heaven’s name, Mr. Sampson, is the meaning of all this?’

‘It may be a message from Heaven,’ said the Dominie, ‘but it came by Beelzebub’s postmistress. It was that witch, Meg Merrilies, who should have been burned with a tar-barrel twenty years since for a harlot, thief, witch, and gipsy.’

‘Are you sure it was she?’ said the Colonel with great interest.

‘Sure, honoured sir? Of a truth she is one not to be forgotten, the like o’ Meg Merrilies is not to be seen in any land.’

The Colonel paced the room rapidly, cogitating with himself. ‘To send out to apprehend her; but it is too distant to send to Mac-Morlan, and Sir Robert Hazlewood is a pompous coxcomb; besides, the chance of not finding her upon the spot, or that the humour of silence that seized her before may again return. No, I will not, to save being thought a fool, neglect the course she points out. Many of her class set out by being impostors and end by becoming enthusiasts, or hold a kind of darkling conduct between both lines, unconscious almost when they are cheating themselves or when imposing on others. Well, my course is a plain one at any rate; and if my efforts are fruitless, it shall not be owing to over-jealousy of my own character for wisdom.’

With this he rang the bell, and, ordering Barnes into his private sitting-room, gave him some orders, with the result of which the reader may be made hereafter acquainted.

We must now take up another adventure, which is also to be woven into the story of this remarkable day.

Charles Hazlewood had not ventured to make a visit at Woodbourne during the absence of the Colonel. Indeed, Mannering’s whole behaviour had impressed upon him an opinion that this would be disagreeable; and such was the ascendency which the successful soldier and accomplished gentleman had attained over the young man’s conduct, that in no respect would he have ventured to offend him. He saw, or thought he saw, in Colonel Mannering’s general conduct, an approbation of his attachment to Miss Bertram. But then he saw still more plainly the impropriety of any attempt at a private correspondence, of which his parents could not be supposed to approve, and he respected this barrier interposed betwixt them both on Mannering’s account and as he was the liberal and zealous protector of Miss Bertram. ‘No,’ said he to himself, ‘I will not endanger the comfort of my Lucy’s present retreat until I can offer her a home of her own.’

With this valorous resolution, which he maintained although his horse, from constant habit, turned his head down the avenue of Woodbourne, and although he himself passed the lodge twice every day, Charles Hazlewood withstood a strong inclination to ride down just to ask how the young ladies were, and whether he could be of any service to them during Colonel Mannering’s absence. But on the second occasion he felt the temptation so severe that he resolved not to expose himself to it a third time; and, contenting himself with sending hopes and inquiries and so forth to Woodbourne, he resolved to make a visit long promised to a family at some distance, and to return in such time as to be one of the earliest among Mannering’s visitors who should congratulate his safe arrival from his distant and hazardous expedition to Edinburgh. Accordingly he made out his visit, and, having arranged matters so as to be informed within a few hours after Colonel Mannering reached home, he finally resolved to take leave of the friends with whom he had spent the intervening time, with the intention of dining at Woodbourne, where he was in a great measure domesticated; and this (for he thought much more deeply on the subject than was necessary) would, he flattered himself, appear a simple, natural, and easy mode of conducting himself.

Fate, however, of which lovers make so many complaints, was in this case unfavourable to Charles Hazlewood. His horse’s shoes required an alteration, in consequence of the fresh weather having decidedly commenced. The lady of the house where he was a visitor chose to indulge in her own room till a very late breakfast hour. His friend also insisted on showing him a litter of puppies which his favourite pointer bitch had produced that morning. The colours had occasioned some doubts about the paternity — a weighty question of legitimacy, to the decision of which Hazlewood’s opinion was called in as arbiter between his friend and his groom, and which inferred in its consequences which of the litter should be drowned, which saved. Besides, the Laird himself delayed our young lover’s departure for a considerable time, endeavouring, with long and superfluous rhetoric, to insinuate to Sir Robert Hazlewood, through the medium of his son, his own particular ideas respecting the line of a meditated turnpike road. It is greatly to the shame of our young lover’s apprehension that, after the tenth reiterated account of the matter, he could not see the advantage to be obtained by the proposed road passing over the Lang Hirst, Windy Knowe, the Goodhouse Park, Hailziecroft, and then crossing the river at Simon’s Pool, and so by the road to Kippletringan; and the less eligible line pointed out by the English surveyor, which would go clear through the main enclosures at Hazlewood, and cut within a mile or nearly so of the house itself, destroying the privacy and pleasure, as his informer contended, of the grounds. In short, the adviser (whose actual interest was to have the bridge built as near as possible to a farm of his own) failed in every effort to attract young Hazlewood’s attention until he mentioned by chance that the proposed line was favoured by ‘that fellow Glossin,’ who pretended to take a lead in the county. On a sudden young Hazlewood became attentive and interested; and, having satisfied himself which was the line that Glossin patronised, assured his friend it should not be his fault if his father did not countenance any other instead of that. But these various interruptions consumed the morning. Hazlewood got on horseback at least three hours later than he intended, and, cursing fine ladies, pointers, puppies, and turnpike acts of parliament, saw himself detained beyond the time when he could with propriety intrude upon the family at Woodbourne.

He had passed, therefore, the turn of the road which led to that mansion, only edified by the distant appearance of the blue smoke curling against the pale sky of the winter evening, when he thought he beheld the Dominie taking a footpath for the house through the woods. He called after him, but in vain; for that honest gentleman, never the most susceptible of extraneous impressions, had just that moment parted from Meg Merrilies, and was too deeply wrapt up in pondering upon her vaticinations to make any answer to Hazlewood’s call. He was therefore obliged to let him proceed without inquiry after the health of the young ladies, or any other fishing question, to which he might by good chance have had an answer returned wherein Miss Bertram’s name might have been mentioned. All cause for haste was now over, and, slackening the reins upon his horse’s neck, he permitted the animal to ascend at his own leisure the steep sandy track between two high banks, which, rising to a considerable height, commanded at length an extensive view of the neighbouring country.

Hazlewood was, however, so far from eagerly looking forward to this prospect, though it had the recommendation that great part of the land was his father’s, and must necessarily be his own, that his head still turned backward towards the chimneys of Woodbourne, although at every step his horse made the difficulty of employing his eyes in that direction become greater. From the reverie in which he was sunk he was suddenly roused by a voice, too harsh to be called female, yet too shrill for a man: ‘What’s kept you on the road sae lang? Maun ither folk do your wark?’

He looked up. The spokeswoman was very tall, had a voluminous handkerchief rolled round her head, grizzled hair flowing in elf-locks from beneath it, a long red cloak, and a staff in her hand, headed with a sort of spear-point; it was, in short, Meg Merrilies. Hazlewood had never seen this remarkable figure before; he drew up his reins in astonishment at her appearance, and made a full stop. ‘I think,’ continued she, ‘they that hae taen interest in the house of Ellangowan suld sleep nane this night; three men hae been seeking ye, and you are gaun hame to sleep in your bed. D’ ye think if the lad-bairn fa’s, the sister will do weel? Na, na!’

‘I don’t understand you, good woman,’ said Hazlewood. ‘If you speak of Miss ——, I mean of any of the late Ellangowan family, tell me what I can do for them.’

‘Of the late Ellangowan family?’ she answered with great vehemence — ‘of the late Ellangowan family! and when was there ever, or when will there ever be, a family of Ellangowan but bearing the gallant name of the bauld Bertrams?’

‘But what do you mean, good woman?’

‘I am nae good woman; a’ the country kens I am bad eneugh, and baith they and I may be sorry eneugh that I am nae better. But I can do what good women canna, and daurna do. I can do what would freeze the blood o’ them that is bred in biggit wa’s for naething but to bind bairns’ heads and to hap them in the cradle. Hear me: the guard............