But with a glance at the intruder Meg Merrilies checked him. In a moment Hatteraick had altered his tone, and was speaking to Mannering civilly, yet still with an undercurrent of sullen suspicion which he tried to disguise under a mask of familiarity.
"You are, I suppose," said Mannering, calmly, "the master of that vessel in the bay?"
"Ay, ay, sir," answered the sailor, "I am Captain Dirk Hatteraick of the Yungfrauw Hagenslaapen, and I am not ashamed of my name or of my vessel, either. Right cognac I carry—rum, lace, real Mechlin, and Souchong tea—if you will come aboard, I will send you ashore with a pouchful of that last—Dirk Hatteraick knows how to be civil!"
Mannering got rid of his offers without openly offending the man, and was well content to see the precious pair vanish down the stone stairs which had formerly served the garrison of the castle in time of siege.
On his return to the house of Ellangowan, Mannering related his adventure, and asked of his host who this villanous-looking Dutchman might be, and why he was allowed to wander at will on his lands.
This was pulling the trigger, and Mr. Bertram at once exploded into a long catalogue of griefs. According to him, the man was undoubtedly one Captain Dirk Hatteraick, a smuggler or free-trader. As for allowing him on his lands—well, Dirk was not very canny to meddle with. Besides, impossible as it was to believe, he, Godfrey Bertram of Ellangowan, was not upon his Majesty's commission of the peace for the county. Jealousy had kept him off—among other things the ill-will of the sitting member. Besides which—after all a gentleman must have his cognac, and his lady her tea and silks. Only smuggled articles came into the country. It was a pity, of course, but he was not more to blame than others.
Thus the Laird maundered on, and Mannering, glad to escape being asked about the doubtful fortune which the stars had predicted for the young heir, did not interrupt him. On the next day, however, before he mounted his horse, he put the written horoscope into a sealed envelope, and, having strictly charged Bertram that it should not be opened till his son reached the age of five years, he took his departure with many expressions of regret.
The next five years were outwardly prosperous ones for Godfrey Bertram of Ellangowan. As the result of an election where he had been of much service to the winning candidate, he was again made a Justice of the Peace, and immediately he set about proving to his brothers of the bench that he could be both a determined and an active magistrate. But this apparent good, brought as usual much of evil with it. Many old kindly customs and courtesies had endeared Godfrey Bertram to his poorer neighbours. He was, they said, no man's enemy, and even the gipsies of the little settlement would have cut off their right hands before they touched a pennyworth belonging to the Laird, their patron and protector. But the other landlords twitted him with pretending to be an active magistrate, and yet harbouring a gang of gipsies at his own door-cheek. Whereupon the Laird went slowly and somewhat sadly home, revolving schemes for getting rid of the colony of Derncleugh, at the head of which was the old witch-wife Meg Merrilies.
Occasions of quarrel were easy to find. The sloe-eyed gipsy children swinging on his gates were whipped down. The rough-coated donkeys forbidden to eat their bite of grass in peace by the roadside. The men were imprisoned for poaching, and matters went so far that one stout young fellow was handed over to the press-gang at Dumfries and sent to foreign parts to serve on board a man-of-war.
The gipsies, on their side, robbed the Ellangowan hen-roosts, stole the linen from my lady's bleaching-green, cut down and barked the young trees—though all the while scarce believing that their ancient friend the Laird of Ellangowan had really turned against them.