tion to his character, as a gentleman and man of honour."

"Mr Brown-I have been seldom-never-so much surprised-certainly, sir, in whatever passed between us, you have a right to command my favourable testimony."

At this critical moment entered the counsellor and Dinmont. The former beheld, to his astonishment, the Colonel but just recovering from his first surprise, Lucy Bertram ready to faint with terror, and Miss Mannering in an agony of doubt and apprehension, which she in vain endeavoured to disguise or suppress. "What is the meaning of all this?" said he; "has this young fellow brought the Gorgon's head in his hand?-let me look at him. By heaven!" he muttered to himself," the very image of old Ellangowan!-Yes, the same manly form and handsome features, but with a world of more intelligence in the face-Yes! the witch has kept her word." Then instantly passing to Lucy," Look at that man, Miss Bertram, my dear; have you never seen any one like him?"

Lucy had only ventured one glance at this object of terror, by which, however, from his remarkable height and appearance, she at once recognised the supposed assassin of young Hazlewood-a conviction which excluded, of course, the more favourable association of ideas which might have occurred on a closer view." Don't ask me about him, sir," said she, turning away her eyes; "send him away, for heaven's sake! we shall all be murdered!"

"Murdered! where's the poker?" said the advocate in some alarm. "But nonsense!- we are three men besides the servants, and there is honest Liddesdale, worth half-a-dozen to boot-we have the major cis upon our side. However, here, my nd Dandie Davie-what do they call you?— p between that fellow and us for the protection of the ladies."

"Lord! Mr Pleydell," said the astonished farmer, "that's Captain Brown; d'ye no ken the Captain?" Nay, if he's a friend of yours, we may be safe enough," answered Pleydell;" but keep near him." All this passed with such rapidity, that it was over before the Dominie had recovered himself from a fit of absence, shut the book which he had been studying in a corner, and advancing to obtain a sight of the strangers, exclaimed at once, upon beholding Bertram, "If the grave can give up the dead, that is my dear and honoured master!"

"We're right after all, by Heaven! I was sure I was right," said the lawyer;" he is the very image of his father.- Come, Colonel, what do you think of, that you do not bid your guest welcome? I think I believe-I trust we're right-never saw such a likeness-But patience-Dominie, say not a word. Sit down, young gentleman."

“I beg pardon, sir;—if I am, as I understand, in Colonel Mannering's house, I should wish first to know if my accidental appearance here gives offence, or if I am welcome?"

Mannering instantly made an effort. "Welcome!-most certainly, especially if you can point out how I can serve you. I believe I may have some wrongs to repair towards you-I have often suspected so; but your sudden and unexpected appearance, connected with painful recollections, prevented my saying at first, as I now say, that whatever has procured me the honour of this visit, it is an acceptable one."

Bertram bowed with an air of distant, yet civil acknowledgment, to the grave courtesy of Manner

ing.

"Julia, my love, you had better retire. Mr Brown, you will excuse my daughter; there are circumstances which I perceive rush upon her re collection."

Miss Mannering rose and retired accordingly; yet, as she passed Bertram, could not suppress the words, "Infatuated! a second time!" but so pronounced as to be heard by him alone. Miss Bertram accompanied her friend, much surprised, but without venturing a second glance at the object of her terror. Some mistake she saw there was, and was unwilling to increase it by denouncing the stranger as an assassin. He was known, she saw, to the Colonel, and received as a gentleman: certainly he either was not the person she suspected, or Hazlewood was right in supposing the shot accidental.

The remaining part of the company would have formed no bad group for a skilful painter. Each was too much embarrassed with his own sensations to observe those of the others. Bertram most unexpectedly found himself in the house of one whom he was alternately disposed to dislike as his personal enemy, and to respect as the father of Julia; Mannering was struggling between his high sense of courtesy and hospitality, his joy at finding himself relieved from the guilt of having shed life in a private quarrel, and the former feelings of dislike and prejudice, which revived in his haughty mind at the sight of the object against whom he had entertained them; Sampson, supporting his shaking limbs by leaning on the back of a chair, fixed his eyes upon Bertram, with a staring expression of nervous anxiety which convulsed his whole visage; Dinmont, enveloped in his loose shaggy great-coat, and resembling a huge bear erect upon his hinder legs, stared on the whole scene with great round eyes that witnessed his amazement.

The counsellor alone was in his element: shrewd, prompt, and active, he already calculated the prospect of brilliant success in a strange, eventful, and mysterious law-suit,—and no young monarch, flushed with hopes, and at the head of a gallant army, could experience more glee when taking the field on his first campaign. He bustled about with great energy, and took the arrangement of the whole explanation upon himself.

"Come, come, gentlemen, sit down; this is all in my province- you must let me arrange it for you. Sit down, my dear Colonel, and let me manage; sit down, Mr Brown, aut quocunque alio nomine cocaris-Dominie, take your seat-draw in your chair, honest Liddesdale."

"I dinna ken, Mr Pleydell," said Dinmont, looking at his dreadnought-coat, then at the handsome furniture of the room, "I had maybe better gang some gate else, and leave ye till your cracks-I'm no just that weel put on."

The Colonel, who by this time recognised Dandie, immediately went up and bid him heartily welcome; assuring him, that from what he had seen of him in Edinburgh, he was sure his rough coat and thick-soled boots would honour a royal drawing room.

“Na, na, Colonel, we're just plain up-the-country folk; but nae doubt I would fain hear o' ony pleasure that was gaun to happen the Captain, and

I'm sure a' will gae right if Mr Pleydell will take his bit job in hand."

"You're right, Dandie-spoke like a Hieland1 oracle and now be silent. Well, you are all seated at last; take a glass of wine till I begin my catechism methodically. And now," turning to Bertram, "my dear boy, do you know who or what you are?"

In spite of his perplexity, the catechumen could not help laughing at this commencement, and answered, "Indeed, sir, I formerly thought I did; but I own late circumstances have made me somewhat uncertain."

"Then tell us what you formerly thought yourself."

"Why, I was in the habit of thinking and calling myself Vanbeest Brown, who served as a cadet or volunteer under Colonel Mannering, when he commanded the regiment, in which capacity

I was not unknown to him."

"There," said the Colonel, "I can assure Mr Brown of his identity; and add, what his modesty may have forgotten, that he was distinguished as a young man of talent and spirit."

"So much the better, my dear sir," said Mr Pleydell; "but that is to general character-Mr Brown must tell us where he was born."

"In Scotland, I believe, but the place uncertain."

"Where educated?" "In Holland, certainly." "Do you remember nothing of your early life before you left Scotland?"

"Very imperfectly;-yet 1 have a strong idea, perhaps more deeply impressed upon me by subsequent hard usage, that I was during my childhood the object of much solicitude and affection. I have an indistinct remembrance of a good-looking man whom I used to call papa, and of a lady who was infirm in health, and who, I think, must have been my mother; but it is an imperfect and confused recollection. I remember, too, a tall, thin, kindtempered man in black, who used to teach me my letters and walk out with me;-and I think the very last time".

Here the Dominie could contain no longer. While every succeeding word served to prove that the child of his benefactor stood before him, he had struggled with the utmost difficulty to suppress his emotions; but, when the juvenile recollections of Bertram turned towards his tutor and his precepts, he was compelled to give way to his feelings. He rose hastily from his chair, and with clasped hands, trembling limbs, and streaming eyes, called out aloud, " Harry Bertram!-look at me-was I not

the man?"

"Yes!" said Bertram, starting from his scat as if a sudden light had burst in upon his mind,"Yes-that was my name !-and that is the voice and the figure of my kind old master!"

The Dominie threw himself into his arms, pressed him a thousand times to his bosom in convulsions of transport which shook his whole frame, sobbed hysterically, and at length, in the emphatic language of Scripture, lifted up his voice and wept

1 It may not be unnecessary to tell southern readers, that the mountainous country in the south-western borders of Scotland, is called Hieland, though totally different from the much more mountainous and more extensive districts of the north, usually called Hielands.

aloud. Colonel Mannering had recourse to his handkerchief; Pleydell made wry faces, and wiped the glasses of his spectacles; and honest Dinmont, after two loud blubbering explosions, exclaimed, “Deil's in the man! he's garr'd me do that I haena done since my auld mither died."

"Come, come," said the counsellor at last," silence in the court.-We have a clever party to contend with; we must lose no time in gathering our information-for anything I know, there may be something to be done before day-break." "I will order a horse to be saddled, if you please," said the Colonel. But

"No, no, time enough-time enough. come, Dominie;-I have allowed you a competent space to express your feelings - I must circumduce the term; you must let me proceed in my examination."

The Dominie was habitually obedient to any one who chose to impose commands upon him; he sunk back into his chair, spread his checked handker. chief over his face, to serve, as I suppose, for the Grecian painter's veil, and, from the action of his folded hands, appeared for a time engaged in the act of mental thanksgiving. He then raised his eyes over the screen, as if to be assured that the pleasing apparition had not melted into air-then again sunk them to resume his internal act of devotion, until he felt himself compelled to give attention to the counsellor, from the interest which his questions excited.

"And now," said Mr Pleydell, after several minute inquiries concerning his recollection of early events" and now, Mr Bertram, for I think we ought in future to call you by your own proper name, will you have the goodness to let us know every particular which you can recollect concerning the mode of your leaving Scotland?"

Indeed, sir, to say the truth, though the terrible outlines of that day are strongly impressed upon. my memory, yet somehow the very terror which, fixed them there has in a great measure confounded and confused the details. I recollect, however, that I was walking somewhere or other-in a wood, I think".

"O yes, it was in Warroch-wood, my dear," said the Dominie.

"Hush, Mr Sampson," said the lawyer. "Yes, it was in a wood," continued Bertram, as long past and confused ideas arranged themselves in his reviving recollection; " and some one was with me- - this worthy and affectionate gentleman, I think."

O, ay, ay, Harry, Lord bless thee-it was even I myself." "Be silent, Dominie, and don't interrupt the evidence," said Pleydell. —“ And so, sir?" to Ber

tram.

"And so, sir," continued Bertram," like one of the changes of a dream, I thought I was on horseback before my guide.'

"No, no," exclaimed Sampson, "never did I put my own limbs, not to say thine, into such peril.”,

"On my word, this is intolerable!--Look ye, Dominie, if you speak another word till I give you leave, I will read three sentences out of the Black Acts, whisk my cane round my head three times, undo all the magic of this night's work, and conjure Harry Bertram back again into Vanbeest Brown." "Honoured and worthy sir," groaned out the

Dominie, "I humbly crave pardon;-it was but verbum volans."

"Well, nolens colens, you must hold your tongue," said Pleydell.

"Pray, be silent, Mr Sampson," said the Colonel; "it is of great consequence to your recovered friend, that you permit Mr Pleydell to proceed in his inquiries."

"I am mute," said the rebuked Dominie. "On a sudden," continued Bertram, "two or three men sprung out upon us, and we were pulled from horseback. I have little recollection of anything else, but that I tried to escape in the midst of a desperate scuffle, and fell into the arms of a very tall woman who started from the bushes, and protected me for some time;-the rest is all confusion and dread—a dim recollection of a seabeach and a cave, and of some strong potion which lulled me to sleep for a length of time. In short, it is all a blank in my memory, until I recollect myself first an ill-used and half-starved cabin-boy aboard a sloop, and then a school-boy in Holland, under the protection of an old merchant, who had taken some fancy for me."

"And what account," said Mr Pleydell," did your guardian give of your parentage?"

"A very brief one," answered Bertram, " and a charge to inquire no farther. I was given to understand, that my father was concerned in the smuggling trade carried on on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was killed in a skirmish with the revenue officers; that his correspondents in Holland had a vessel on the coast at the time, part of the crew of which were engaged in the affair, and that they brought me off after it was over, from a motive of compassion, as I was left destitute by my father's death. As I grew older, there was much of this story seemed inconsistent with my own recollections. But what could I do? I had no means of ascertaining my doubts, nor a single friend with whom I could communicate or canvass them. The rest of my story is known to Colonel Mannering: I went out to India to be a clerk in a Dutch house; their affairs fell into confusion; I betook myself to the military profession, and, I trust, as yet I have not disgraced it."

"Thou art a fine young fellow, I'll be bound for thee," said Pleydell;" and since you have wanted a father so long, I wish from my heart I could claim the paternity myself. But this affair of young Hazlewood".

"Was merely accidental," said Bertram. "I was travelling in Scotland for pleasure, and after a week's residence with my friend Mr Dinmont, with whom I had the good fortune to form an accidental acquaintance"

"It was my gude fortune that," said Dinmont. "Od, my brains wad hae been knockit out by twa blackguards, if it hadna been for his four quarters." "Shortly after we parted at the town of I lost my baggage by thieves, and it was while residing at Kippletringan that I accidentally met the young gentleman. As I was approaching to pay my respects to Miss Mannering, whom I had known in India, Mr Hazlewood, conceiving my appearance none of the most respectable, commanded me rather haughtily to stand back, and so gave occasion to the fray in which I had the misfortune to be the accidental means of wounding him. And now, sir, that I have answered all your questions"VOL. I. 317

No. XXI.

"No, no, not quite all," said Pleydell, winking sagaciously; "there are some interrogatories which I shall delay till to-morrow, for it is time, I believe, to close the sederunt for this night, or rather morning."

"Well, then, sir," said the young man, " to vary the phrase, since I have answered all the questions which you have chosen to ask to-night, will you be so good as to tell me who you are that take such interest in my affairs, and whom you take me to be, since my arrival has occasioned such commotion?" "Why, sir, for myself," replied the counsellor, "I am Paulus Pleydell, an advocate at the Scottish bar; and for you, it is not easy to say distinctly who you are at present; but I trust in a short time to hail you by the title of Henry Bertram, Esq., representative of one of the oldest families in Scotland, and heir of tailzie and provision to the estate of Ellangowan.-Ay," continued he, shutting his eyes and speaking to himself, "we must pass over his father, and serve him heir to his grandfather Lewis, the entailer-the only wise man of his family that I ever heard of."

They had now risen to retire to their apartments for the night, when Colonel Mannering walked up to Bertram, as he stood astonished at the counsellor's words. "I give you joy," he said, " of the prospects which fate has opened before you. I was an early friend of your father, and chanced to be in the house of Ellangowan as unexpectedly as you are now in mine, upon the very night in which you were born. I little knew this circumstance when but I trust unkindness will be forgotten between Believe me, your appearance here, as Mr Brown, alive and well, has relieved me from most painful sensations; and your right to the name of an old friend renders your presence, as Mr Bertram, doubly welcome.'

us.

"And my parents?" said Bertram.

"Are both no more-and the family property has been sold, but I trust may be recovered. Whatever is wanted to make your right effectual, I shall be most happy to supply."

"Nay, you may leave all that to me," said the counsellor ;-'tis my vocation, Hal, I shall make money of it."

"I'm sure it's no for the like o' me," observed Dinmont, " to speak to you gentlefolks; but if siller would help on the Captain's plea, and they say nae plea gangs on weel without it

"Except on Saturday night," said Pleydell.

"Ay, but when your honour wadna take your fee, ye wadna hae the cause neither; sae I'll ne'er fash you on a Saturday at e'en again-But I was saying, there's some siller in the spleuchan1 that's like the Captain's ain, for we've aye counted it such, baith Ailie and me.”

"No, no, Liddesdale-no occasion, no occasion whatever-keep thy cash to stock thy farm."

"To stock my farm? Mr Pleydell, your honour kens mony things, but ye dinna ken the farm o' Charlies-hope-it's sae weel stockit already, that we sell maybe sax hundred pounds off it ilka year, flesh and fell thegither-na, na."

"Can't you take another, then?"

"I dinna ken-the Deuke's no that fond o' led farms, and he canna bide to put away the auld te

1 A spleuchan is a tobacco pouch, oocasionally used as

a purse.

X

"What, not upon thy neighbour at DawstonDevilstone-how d'ye call the place?"

"What, on Jock o' Dawston?-hout na-he's a camsteary2 chield, and fasheous about marches, and we've had some bits o' splores thegither; but deil o' me if I wad wrang Jock o' Dawston neither." "Thou'rt an honest fellow," said the lawyer; "get thee to bed;-thou wilt sleep sounder, I warrant thee, than many a man that throws off an embroidered coat, and puts on a laced night-cap. Colonel, I see you are busy with our Enfant trouvé. But Barnes must give me a summons of wakening at seven to-morrow morning, for my servant's a sleepy-headed fellow, and I dare say my clerk, Driver, has had Clarence's fate, and is drowned by this time in a butt of your ale; for Mrs Allan promised to make him comfortable, and she'll soon discover what he expects from that engagement. Good-night, Colonel-good-night, Dominie Sampson-good-night, Dinmont the downright-goodnight, last of all, to the new-found representative of the Bertrams, and the Mac-Dingawaies, the Knarths, the Arths, the Godfreys, the Dennises, and the Rolands, and, last and dearest title, heir of tailzie and provision of the lands and barony of Ellangowan, under the settlement of Lewis Bertram, Esq., whose representative you are."

And so saying, the old gentleman took his candle and left the room; and the company dispersed, after the Dominie had once more hugged and embraced his "little Harry Bertram," as he continued to call the young soldier of six feet high.

AT the hour which he had appointed the preceding evening, the indefatigable lawyer was seated by a good fire and a pair of wax candles, with a velvet cap on his head and a quilted silk night-gown on his person, busy arranging his memoranda of proofs and indications concerning the murder of Frank Kennedy. An express had also been dispatched to Mr Mac-Morlan, requesting his attendance at Woodbourne as soon as possible, on business of importance. Dinmont, fatigued with the events of the evening before, and finding the accommodations of Woodbourne much preferable to those of Mac-Guffog, was in no hurry to rise. The impatience of Bertram might have put him earlier in motion, but Colonel Mannering had intimated an intention to visit him in his apartment in the morning, and he did pot choose to leave it. Before this interview he had dressed himself, Barnes having, by his master's orders, supplied him with every accommodation of linen, &c., and he now anxiously waited the promised visit of his landlord.

1 Whistling, among the tenantry of a large estate, is, when an individual gives such information to the proprietor or his managers, as to occasion the rent of his neighbour's farms being raised, which, for obvious reasons, is held a very unpopular practice.

2 Obstinate and unruly.

3 Troublesome.

factory conversation. Each, however, concealed from the other one circumstance. Mannering could not bring himself to acknowledge the astrological prediction; and Bertram was, from motives which may be easily conceived, silent respecting his love for Julia. In other respects, their intercourse was frank, and grateful to both, and had latterly, upon the Colonel's part, even an approach to cordiality. Bertram carefully measured his own conduct by that of his host, and seemed rather to receive his offered kindness with gratitude and pleasure, than to press for it with solicitation.

Miss Bertram was in the breakfast parlour when Sampson shuffled in,— his face all radiant with smiles; a circumstance so uncommon, that Lucy's first idea was, that somebody had been bantering him with an imposition which had thrown him into this ecstasy. Having sate for some time, rolling his eyes and gaping with his mouth like the great wooden head at Merlin's exhibition, he at length began-" And what do you think of him, Miss Lucy?"

"Think of whom, Mr Sampson?" asked the young lady.

"Of Har-no-of him that you know about!" again demanded the Dominie.

"That I know about?" replied Lucy, totally at a loss to comprehend his meaning.

"Yes-the stranger, you know, that came last evening in the post vehicle-he who shot young Hazlewood-ha! ha! ho!" burst forth the Dominie, with a laugh that sounded like neighing. "Indeed, Mr Sampson," said his pupil, have chosen a strange subject for mirth;-I think nothing about the man- only I hope the outrage was accidental, and that we need not fear a repetition of it."

66 you

66

"Really, Mr Sampson," said Lucy, somewhat piqued, you are unusually gay this morning." "Yes, of a surety I am! ha! ha! ho! face-ti-ous -ho! ho! ha!”

"So unusually facetious, my dear sir," pursued the young lady," that I would wish rather to know the meaning of your mirth, than to be amused with its effects only."

"You shall know it, Miss Lucy," replied poor Abel-" Do you remember your brother?"

"Good God! how can you ask me?-no one knows better than you, he was lost the very day I was born."

"Very true, very true," answered the Dominie, saddening at the recollection; "I was strangely oblivious-ay, ay-too true- -But you remember your worthy father?"

"How should you doubt it, Mr Sampson? it is not so many weeks since"

"True, true-ay, too true," replied the Dominie, his Houyhnhnm laugh sinking into a hysterical giggle-"I will be facetious no more under these remembrances-But look at that young man !"

Bertram at this instant entered the room.“Yes, look at him well-he is your father's living image; and as God has deprived you of your dear parents-O my children, love one another!"

"It is indeed my father's face and form," said Lucy, turning very pale. Bertram ran to support

her-the Dominie to fetch water to throw upon her face-(which in his haste he took from the boiling tea-urn)-when fortunately her colour returning rapidly, saved her from the application of this ill-judged remedy. "I conjure you to tell me, Mr Sampson," she said, in an interrupted yet solemn voice," is this my brother?"

if it becomes me so to speak, been pretermitted by me, in so far as my poor faculties have enabled me to profit by them. Of a surety, little Harry, we must speedily resume our studies. I will begin from the foundation - yes, I will reform your education upward from the true knowledge of English grammar, even to that of the Hebrew or Chaldaic

66

That," said Lucy, "he left to this gentleman to tell you,- one of the kindest and most faithful of friends, who soothed my father's long sickness, witnessed his dying moments, and amid the heaviest clouds of fortune would not desert his orphan.”

"God bless him for it!" said Bertram, shaking the Dominie's hand; "he deserves the love with which I have always regarded even that dim and imperfect shadow of his memory which my childhood retained."

"And God bless you both, my dear children!" said Sampson: "if it had not been for your sake, I would have been contented (had Heaven's pleasure so been) to lay my head upon the turf beside my patron."

"But I trust," said Bertram-"I am encouraged to hope, we shall all see better days. All our wrongs shall be redressed, since Heaven has sent me means and friends to assert my right."

"Friends indeed!" echoed the Dominie, "and sent, as you truly say, by HIM, to whom I early taught you to look up as the source of all that is good. There is the great Colonel Mannering from the Eastern Indies, a man of war from his birth upwards, but who is not the less a man of great erudition, considering his imperfect opportunities; and there is, moreover, the great advocate, Mr Pieydell, who is also a man of great erudition, but who descendeth to trifles unbeseeming thereof; and there is Mr Andrew Dinmont, whom I do not understand to have possession of much erudition, but who, like the patriarchs of old, is cunning in that which belongeth to flocks and herds. Lastly, there is even I myself, whose opportunities of collecting erudition, as they have been greater than those of the aforesaid valuable persons, have not,

The reader may observe, that upon this occasion Sampson was infinitely more profuse of words than he had hitherto exhibited himself. The reason was, that in recovering his pupil, his mind went instantly back to their original connexion, and he had, in his confusion of ideas, the strongest desire in the world to resume spelling lessons and halftext with young Bertram. This was the more ridiculous, as towards Lucy he assumed no such powers of tuition. But she had grown up under his eye, and had been gradually emancipated from his government by increase in years and knowledge, and a latent sense of his own inferior tact in manners, whereas his first ideas went to take up Harry pretty nearly where he had left him. From the same feelings of reviving authority, he indulged himself in what was to him a profusion of language; and as people seldom speak more than usual without exposing themselves, he gave those whom he addressed plainly to understand, that while he deferred implicitly to the opinions and commands, if they chose to impose them, of almost every one whom he met with, it was under an internal conviction, that in the article of eru-di-ti-on, as he usually pronounced the word, he was infinitely superior to them all put together. At present, however, this intimation fell upon heedless ears, for the brother and sister were too deeply engaged in asking and receiving intelligence concerning their former fortunes, to attend much to the worthy Dominie.

ant.

When Colonel Mannering left Bertram, he went to Julia's dressing-room, and dismissed her attend"My dear sir," she said as he entered, “you have forgot our vigils last night, and have hardly allowed me time to comb my hair, although you must be sensible how it stood on end at the various wonders which took place."

"It is with the inside of your head that I have some business at present, Julia; I will return the outside to the care of your Mrs Mincing in a few minutes."

Lord, papa," replied Miss Mannering, "think how entangled all my ideas are, and you to propose to comb them out in a few minutes! If Mincing were to do so in her department, she would tear half the hair out of my head."

"Well then, tell me," said the Colonel, "where the entanglement lies, which I will try to extricate with due gentleness."

"O, everywhere," said the young lady-"the whole is a wild dream."

"Well then, I will try to unriddle it."— He gave a brief sketch of the fate and prospects of Bertram, to which Julia listened with an interest which she in vain endeavoured to disguise"Well," concluded her father, "are your ideas on the subject more luminous?"

"More confused than ever, my dear sir," said Julia." Here is this young man come from India, after he had been supposed dead, like Aboulfouaris the great voyager to his sister Canzade and his provident brother Hour I am wrong in the story,