THE FIGHT IN THE CAVE
Immediately upon receiving the message of Meg Merrilies, brought by Dominie Sampson, Colonel Mannering had sent a carriage to the place designated. Bertram and his companion Dandie, having by the help of the gipsies, Meg's companions, made good their escape from the burning custom-house, took their places in it and were whirled through the darkness, they knew not whither. But it was at the door of the house of Woodbourne that they found themselves. Mr. Pleydell, the lawyer, had also arrived from Edinburgh, so that all were presently met together in the drawing-room, and it is difficult to say which of the party appeared the most surprised.
In Captain Brown (or Harry Bertram, to call him by his own proper name), Colonel Mannering saw the man whom he had believed slain by his hand in India. Julia met her lover in her father's house, and apparently there by his invitation. Dominie Sampson stood half aghast to recognise the lost heir of Ellangowan. Bertram himself feared the effect which his sudden appearance might have on Julia, while honest Dandie wished his thick-soled boots and rough-spun Liddesdale plaid anywhere else than in a room filled with ladies and gentlemen.
Only the lawyer, Mr. Pleydell, was wholly master of the situation, and bustled about, putting everybody at their ease. He saw himself in the thick of a great mysterious lawsuit which he alone could unravel, and he proceeded on the spot to cross-examine Bertram as to what he remembered of his life before he went to Holland.
Bertram remembered, he said, quite clearly, a good-looking gentleman whom he had called father, a delicate lady who must have been his mother, but more distinctly than either he recalled a tall man in worn black who had taught him his lessons and whom he loved for his kindness.
At these words Dominie Sampson could contain himself no longer. He rose hastily from his chair, and with clasped hands and trembling limbs cried out, "Harry Bertram—look at me! Was not I the man?"
Bertram started up as if a sudden light had dawned upon him.
"Yes," he cried, "that is my name—Bertram—Harry Bertram! And those are the voice and figure of my kind old master!"
The Dominie threw himself into his arms, his whole frame shaking with emotion, and at last, his feelings overcoming him, he lifted up his voice and wept. Even Colonel Mannering had need of his handkerchief. Pleydell made wry faces and rubbed hard at his glasses, while Dandie Dinmont, after two strange blubbering explosions, fairly gave way and cried out, "Deil's in the man! He's garred me do what I haena done since my auld mither died!"
After this, the examination went on more staidly. Bertram said that he remembered very well the walk he had taken with the Dominie and somebody lifting him up on horseback—then, more indistinctly, a scuffle in which he and his guide had been pulled from the saddle. Vaguely and gradually the memory came back of how he had been lifted into the arms of a very tall woman who protected him from harm. Again he was a poor half-starved cabin-boy in the Holland trade. Quickly, however, gaining the good-will of the leading partner of the firm to which the vessel belonged, he had been thoroughly well educated in Holland, before being sent to seek his fortune in India. He passed over his career there, but told in detail the accidental way in which young Hazlewood had been wounded, and ended by a request that he should now be told who the questioner might be who took such an interest in his affairs.
