| "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." |
II. DANDIE DINMONT
But the story now turns to the young man Brown, or, to give him his full title, Captain Vanbeest Brown, whom Colonel Mannering had left for dead on an Indian field. He did not die, but he had been compelled to undergo a long captivity among the bandits before he found his way back to his regiment. The new Colonel whom he found in Mannering's place had been kind to him, and he soon found himself in command of a troop of dragoons. He was at present on leave in England, and, as he was conscious that Mannering had no reason for his ill-will and apparent cruelty, Brown felt that he on his part had no reason for standing on ceremony with such a man. He loved Julia Mannering, and, to say the least of it, she did not discourage him. So it was he who had played the Hindoo air upon the lake—he with whom Julia had talked at her window, even as Mervyn had related in his letter to his friend Colonel Mannering.
When the Colonel and his daughter went away to Scotland, Captain Brown, having no relatives in the country, resolved to follow them. He set out on foot, having for sole companion a little terrier named Wasp. On the way he had to pass a long and weary waste of heath and morass. One house alone broke the monotonous expanse. It was little better than a shed, but was sheltered by an ash tree, and a clay-built shed alongside served for a rude stable. A stout pony stood tethered in front of the door, busy with a feed of oats. Stillness brooded all around. It was a poor place, but Captain Brown had wandered too far and seen too much to care about appearances. He stooped his head and entered at the low door. In a few minutes he found himself attacking a round of beef and washing it down with home-brewed ale in company with the owner of the pony tethered outside, a certain Mr. Dandie Dinmont, a store-farmer on his way home from a Cumberland fair. At first only pleasant nods passed between them as they drank to each other in silence.
Presently Brown noticed, seated in the great chimney, a very tall old woman clad in a red cloak and a slouched bonnet, having all the appearance of a gipsy or tinker. She smoked silently at her clay pipe, while the doubtful-looking landlady went about her affairs.
Brown's terrier Wasp was the means of his striking up an acquaintance with the sturdy farmer opposite, who, hearing that he had never seen a blackcock, invited him forthwith to Charlies-hope, the name of his farm, where he promised him he should both see blackcock, shoot blackcock, and eat blackcock. Dandie Dinmont was going on to tell Brown of his wanderings, when the old crone in the red cloak by the side of the fire suddenly broke silence by asking if he had been recently in Galloway, and if he knew Ellangowan.
"Ellangowan!" cried the farmer, "I ken it weel! Auld Laird Bertram died but a fortnight ago, and the estate and everything had to be sold for want of an heir male."
The old gipsy (who, of course, was no other than Meg Merrilies) sprang at once to her feet.
"And who dared buy the estate, when the bonny knave-bairn that heirs it may any day come back to claim his ain?"
"It was, I believe," said Dandie Dinmont, "one of these writer bodies that buy up everything,—Gilbert Glossin by name!"