On reading it over, he came somehow to the conclusion that Miss Mannering meant the opposite of all she had written, and in this belief he set sail at once for Kippletringan.
After a rough and dangerous voyage by night, he found himself in the morning off the Scottish coast. The weather had now cleared. A woody cape, that stretched into the sea, lay some little distance from the vessel; and, in answer to Brown's inquiries, the boatman told him that it was Warroch Point. Close beside it was the old castle of Ellangowan; and Brown felt a strange longing, as he looked at it, to be put ashore for the purpose of examining it more closely. The boatman readily acceded to his wishes, and landed him on the beach beneath the ruins.
And thus, in complete ignorance of his own real identity, surrounded by dangers, and without the assistance of a friend within the circle of several hundred miles, accused of a heavy crime, and almost penniless, did the weary wanderer, for the first time after an interval of many eventful years, approach the remains of the castle where his ancestors had once dwelt in lordly splendour.
It will have dawned upon the reader before now that the young soldier known to him as Brown was in reality no other than the Harry Bertram who had disappeared on the day when Kennedy was murdered. The name of Brown will consequently be dropped during the remainder of the story, and our hero will be called by his proper appellation—Bertram.
After wandering for some time through the ruined apartments of the castle, he stepped outside, and happened by chance to stand on the very spot where his father—the old Laird of Ellangowan—had died.
Glossin at that moment chanced to be engaged close by with a surveyor, in reference to some building plans connected with an intended addition to his house; and he was just saying to his companion that the whole ruin should be pulled down, when Bertram met him, and said:
"Would you destroy this fine old castle, sir?"
His face, person, and voice were so exactly like those of his father when alive, that Glossin almost believed that the grave had given up its dead.
But after a time he recovered his self-possession, and then set himself to discover if Bertram, whom he recognised, had any knowledge of his own identity. He was much terrified when he heard him repeat some lines of an old song, which he said he had learnt in his childhood:
"The dark shall be light,
And the wrong made right,
When Bertram's right and Bertram's might
Shall meet on …;"