Mannering consulted with Mr. Mac-Morlan upon the steps for thwarting this unprincipled attempt. They then conversed long on the singular disappearance of Harry Bertram upon his fifth birthday, verifying thus the random prediction of Mannering, of which, however, it will readily be supposed he made no boast. Mr. Mac-Morlan was not himself in office when that incident took place; but he was well acquainted with all the circumstances, and promised that our hero should have them detailed by the sheriff-depute himself, if, as he proposed, he should become a settler in that part of Scotland. With this assurance they parted, well satisfied with each other and with the evening's conference.
On the Sunday following, Colonel Mannering attended the parish church with great decorum. None of the Ellangowan family were present; and it was understood that the old Laird was rather worse than better. Jock Jabos, once more despatched for him, returned once more without his errand; but on the following day Miss Bertram hoped he might be removed.
CHAPTER XIII
They told me, by the sentence of the law,
They had commission to seize all thy fortune.
Here stood a ruffian with a horrid face,
Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate,
Tumbled into a heap for public sale;
There was another, making villainous jests
At thy undoing; he had ta'en possession
Of all thy ancient most domestic ornaments.
OTWAY.
Early next morning Mannering mounted his horse and, accompanied by his servant, took the road to Ellangowan. He had no need to inquire the way. A sale in the country is a place of public resort and amusement, and people of various descriptions streamed to it from all quarters.
After a pleasant ride of about an hour, the old towers of the ruin presented themselves in the landscape. The thoughts, with what different feelings he had lost sight of them so many years before, thronged upon the mind of the traveller. The landscape was the same; but how changed the feelings, hopes, and views of the spectator! Then life and love were new, and all the prospect was gilded by their rays. And now, disappointed in affection, sated with fame and what the world calls success, his mind, goaded by bitter and repentant recollection, his best hope was to find a retirement in which he might nurse the melancholy that was to accompany him to his grave. 'Yet why should an individual mourn over the instability of his hopes and the vanity of his prospects? The ancient chiefs who erected these enormous and massive towers to be the fortress of their race and the seat of their power,—could they have dreamed the day was to come when the last of their descendants should be expelled, a ruined wanderer, from his possessions! But Nature's bounties are unaltered. The sun will shine as fair on these ruins, whether the property of a stranger or of a sordid and obscure trickster of the abused law, as when the banners of the founder first waved upon their battlements.'
These reflections brought Mannering to the door of the house, which was that day open to all. He entered among others, who traversed the apartments, some to select articles for purchase, others to gratify their curiosity. There is something melancholy in such a scene, even under the most favourable circumstances. The confused state of the furniture, displaced for the convenience of being easily viewed and carried off by the purchasers, is disagreeable to the eye. Those articles which, properly and decently arranged, look creditable and handsome, have then a paltry and wretched appearance; and the apartments, stripped of all that render them commodious and comfortable, have an aspect of ruin and dilapidation. It is disgusting also to see the scenes of domestic society and seclusion thrown open to the gaze of the curious and the vulgar, to hear their coarse speculations and brutal jests upon the fashions and furniture to which they are unaccustomed,—a frolicsome humour much cherished by the whisky which in Scotland is always put in circulation on such occasions. All these are ordinary effects of such a scene as Ellangowan now presented; but the moral feeling, that in this case they indicated the total ruin of an ancient and honourable family, gave them treble weight and poignancy.
It was some time before Colonel Mannering could find any one disposed to answer his reiterated questions concerning Ellangowan himself. At length an old maidservant, who held her apron to her eyes as she spoke, told him 'the Laird was something better, and they hoped he would be able to leave the house that day. Miss Lucy expected the chaise every moment, and, as the day was fine for the time o' year, they had carried him in his easychair up to the green before the auld castle, to be out of the way of this unco spectacle.' Thither Colonel Mannering went in quest of him, and soon came in sight of the little group, which consisted of four persons. The ascent was steep, so that he had time to reconnoitre them as he advanced, and to consider in what mode he should make his address.
Mr. Bertram, paralytic and almost incapable of moving, occupied his easy-chair, attired in his nightcap and a loose camlet coat, his feet wrapped in blankets. Behind him, with his hands crossed on the cane upon which he rested, stood Dominie Sampson, whom Mannering recognised at once. Time had made no change upon him, unless that his black coat seemed more brown, and his gaunt cheeks more lank, than when Mannering last saw him. On one side of the old man was a sylph-like form—a young woman of about seventeen, whom the Colonel accounted to be his daughter. She was looking from time to time anxiously towards the avenue, as if expecting the post-chaise; and between whiles busied herself in adjusting the blankets so as to protect her father from the cold, and in answering inquiries, which he seemed to make with a captious and querulous manner. She did not trust herself to look towards the Place, although the hum of the assembled crowd must have drawn her attention in that direction. The fourth person of the group was a handsome and genteel young man, who seemed to share Miss Bertram's anxiety, and her solicitude to soothe and accommodate her parent.