Hazlewood, whose horse was outside the cave, then rode off for assistance, and after some time returned with several others. The prisoner was carried out, still firmly bound, and also Meg Merrilies, who was still living, though desperately wounded in the chest.
They wished to take her to the nearest cottage, but she refused to be moved anywhere but to the Kaim of Derncleugh. Accordingly they bore her to the vault in the ruined tower.
The alarm had now spread through the countryside that Kennedy's murderer had been taken on the very spot where the murder had been committed years before; and a crowd of people, with a clergyman and a surgeon, had flocked to the place where the dying gipsy lay. She, however, refused all offers of assistance, and called for Harry Bertram.
When Bertram approached the wretched bed on which she lay, she took his hand.
"Look at him," she said to those about her, "the image of his dead father. And hear me now—let that man," pointing to Hatteraick, "deny what I say if he can." And then she told the story of how the young boy had been carried off from Warroch Wood; how she saved his life from smugglers who would have murdered him; and how she swore an oath to keep the secret till he was one-and-twenty, and vowed that if she lived to see the day of his return she would set him again in his father's seat, though every step was on a dead man. "Dirck Hatteraick," she said, "you and I will never meet again until we are before the Judgment-seat—will ye dare deny it?"
And as Hatteraick refused to open his lips, she added: "Farewell! and God forgive you! your hand has sealed my evidence."
And shortly after, as she heard the crowd about her greet Bertram with enthusiastic cheers as the true Laird of Ellangowan, her troubled spirit passed peacefully away.
The following day, Hatteraick was brought before the magistrates at Kippletringan. The dying declaration of Meg Merrilies was proved by the surgeon and the clergyman who had heard it. Bertram again told his recollections of early childhood. Gabriel, the gipsy, the same man who had avoided meeting Bertram's eye when out hunting with Dandie Dinmont, told the whole story of Kennedy's murder, as he was at Warroch Point on the day of its occurrence. He stated that Glossin was present and accepted a bribe to keep the matter a secret. This witness also stated that it was he that had told his aunt, Meg Merrilies, that Bertram had returned to the country; and that it was by her orders that three or four of the gipsies had mingled in the crowd when the custom-house was attacked, for the purpose of helping Bertram to escape. He also added that Meg Merrilies had often said that Harry Bertram carried the proof of his birth hung round his neck.
Bertram here produced the velvet bag which had been worked by his mother, and which he said he had always continued to wear. On its being opened, Colonel Mannering instantly recognised his own writing on the paper it enclosed, proving to everyone's satisfaction that the wearer was the real heir of Ellangowan.
The investigation was concluded by both Hatteraick and Glossin being sent to gaol.