A chaise returning empty to Kippletringan had been stopped on the highroad by a constable, who foresaw it would be necessary to convey Hatteraick to jail. The driver, understanding what was going on at Derncleugh, left his horses to the care of a blackguard boy, confiding, it is to be supposed, rather in the years and discretion of the cattle than in those of their keeper, and set off full speed to see, as he expressed himself, 'whaten a sort o' fun was gaun on.' He arrived just as the group of tenants and peasants, whose numbers increased every moment, satiated with gazing upon the rugged features of Hatteraick, had turned their attention towards Bertram. Almost all of them, especially the aged men who had seen Ellangowan in his better days, felt and acknowledged the justice of Meg Merrilies's appeal. But the Scotch are a cautious people: they remembered there was another in possession of the estate, and they as yet only expressed their feelings in low whispers to each other. Our friend Jock Jabos, the postilion, forced his way into the middle of the circle; but no sooner cast his eyes upon Bertram than he started back in amazement, with a solemn exclamation, 'As sure as there's breath in man, it's auld Ellangowan arisen from the dead!'
This public declaration of an unprejudiced witness was just the spark wanted to give fire to the popular feeling, which burst forth in three distinct shouts: 'Bertram for ever!' 'Long life to the heir of Ellangowan!' 'God send him his ain, and to live among us as his forebears did of yore!'
'I hae been seventy years on the land,' said one person.
'I and mine hae been seventy and seventy to that,' said another; 'I have a right to ken the glance of a Bertram.'
'I and mine hae been three hundred years here,' said another old man, 'and I sail sell my last cow, but I'll see the young Laird placed in his right.'
The women, ever delighted with the marvellous, and not less so when a handsome young man is the subject of the tale, added their shrill acclamations to the general all-hail. 'Blessings on him; he's the very picture o' his father! The Bertrams were aye the wale o' the country side!'
'Eh! that his puir mother, that died in grief and in doubt about him, had but lived to see this day!' exclaimed some female voices.
'But we'll help him to his ain, kimmers,' cried others; 'and before Glossin sail keep the Place of Ellangowan we'll howk him out o't wi' our nails!'
Others crowded around Dinmont, who was nothing both to tell what he knew of his friend, and to boast the honour which he had in contributing to the discovery. As he was known to several of the principal farmers present, his testimony afforded an additional motive to the general enthusiasm. In short, it was one of those moments of intense feeling when the frost of the Scottish people melts like a snow-wreath, and the dissolving torrent carries dam and dyke before it.
The sudden shouts interrupted the devotions of the clergyman; and Meg, who was in one of those dozing fits of stupefaction that precede the close of existence, suddenly started—'Dinna ye hear? dinna ye hear? He's owned! he's owned! I lived but for this. I am a sinfu' woman; but if my curse brought it down, my blessing has taen it off! And now I wad hae liked to hae said mair. But it canna be. Stay'—she continued, stretching her head towards the gleam of light that shot through the narrow slit which served for a window—'is he not there? Stand out o' the light, and let me look upon him ance mair. But the darkness is in my ain een,' she said, sinking back, after an earnest gaze upon vacuity; 'it's a' ended now,