第95章

Glossin paused--the sweat broke upon his brow with the agony of his feelings, while the hard-featured miscreant who sat opposite, coolly rolled his tobacco in his cheek, and squirted the juice into the fire-grate. "It would be ruin," said Glossin to himself, "absolute ruin, if the heir should reappear--and then what might be the consequence of conniving with these men?--yet there is so little time to take measures--Hark you, Hatteraick; I can't set you at liberty--but I can put you where you may set yourself at liberty--I always like to assist an old friend. I shall confine you in the old castle for tonight, and give these people double allowance of grog. Mac-Guffog will fall in the trap in which he caught you. The stanchions on the window of the strong room, as they call it, are wasted to pieces, and it is not above twelve feet from the level of the ground without, and the snow lies thick.""But the darbies," said Hatteraick, looking upon his fetters.

"Hark ye," said Glossin, going to a tool-chest, and taking out a small file, "there's a friend for you, and you know the road to the sea by the stairs." Hatteraick shook his chains in ecstasy, as if he were already at liberty, and strove to extend his lettered hand towards his protector. Glossin laid his finger upon his lips with a cautious glance at the door, and then proceeded in his instructions. "When you escape, you had better go to the Kaim of Dernecleugh.""Donner! that howff is blown.""The devil!--well, then, you may steal my skiff that lies on the beach there, and away. But you must remain snug at the Point of Warroch till I come to see you.""The Point of Warroch?" said Hatteraick, his countenance again falling; "what, in the cave, I suppose?--I would rather it were anywhere else;--es spuckt da!--they say for certain that he walks--But, donner and blitzen! I never shunned him alive, and Iwon't shun him dead--Strafe mich helle! it shall never be said Dirk Hatteraick feared either dog or devil!--So I am to wait there till I see you?""Ay, ay," answered Glossin, "and now I must call in the men." He did so, accordingly.

"I can make nothing of Captain Janson, as he calls himself, Mac-Guffog, and it's now too late to bundle him off to the county jail. Is there not a strong room up yonder in the old castle?""Ay is there, sir; my uncle the constable ance kept a man there for three days in auld Ellangowan's time. But there was an unco dust about it--it was tried in the Inner House afore the Feifteen.""I know all that, but this person will not stay there very long--it's only a makeshift for a night, a mere lock-up house till further examination. There is a small room through which it opens, you may light a fire for yourselves there, and I'll send you plenty of stuff to make you comfortable. But be sure you lock the door upon the prisoner; and, hark ye, let him have a fire in the strongroom too, the season requires it. Perhaps he'll make a clean breast to-morrow."With these instructions, and with a large allowance of food and liquor, the justice dismissed his party to keep guard for the night in the old castle, under the full hope and belief that they would neither spend the night in watching, nor prayer.

There was little fear that Glossin himself should that night sleep over-sound. His situation was perilous in the extreme, for the schemes of a life of villainy seemed at once to be crumbling around and above him. He laid himself to rest, and tossed upon his pillow for a long time in vain. At length he fell asleep, but it was only to dream of his patron,--now, as he had last seen him, with the paleness of death upon his features, then again transformed into all the vigour and comeliness of youth, approaching to expel him from the mansion-house of his fathers. Then he dreamed, that after wandering long over a wild heath, he came at length to an inn, from which sounded the voice of revelry; and that when he entered, the first person he met was Frank Kennedy, all smashed and gory, as he had lain on the beach at Warroch Point, but with a reeking punch-bowl in his hand. Then the scene changed to a dungeon, where he heard Dirk Hatteraick, whom he imagined to be under sentence of death, confessing his crimes to a clergyman.--"After the bloody deed was done," said the penitent, "we retreated into a cave close beside, the secret of which was known but to one man in the country; we were debating what to do with the child, and we thought of--giving it up to the gipsies, when we heard the cries of the pursuers hallooing to each other. One man alone came straight to our cave, and it was that man who knew the secret--but we made him our friend at the expense of half the value of the goods saved. By his, advice we carried off the child to Holland in our consort, which came the following night to take us from the coast. That man was--""No, I deny it!--it was not I!" said Glossin, in half-uttered accents; and, struggling in his agony to express his denial more distinctly, he awoke.