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.
