第36章

"Weel, but they can come at no rate, I tell ye--Mr. Bertram canna be moved.""What Mr. Bertram?" said the stranger; "not Mr. Bertram of Ellangowan, I hope?""Just e'en that same, sir; and if ye be a friend o' his, ye have come at a time when he's sair bested.""I have been abroad for many years--is his health so much deranged?""Ay, and his affairs an' a'," said the Deacon "the creditors have entered into possession o' the estate, and it's for sale; and some that made the maist by him--I name nae names, but Mrs. Mac-Candlish kens wha I mean--(the landlady shook her head significantly)they're sairest on him e'en now. I have a sma' matter due mysell, but I would rather have lost it than gane to turn the auld man out of his house, and him just dying.""Ay, but," said the parish-clerk, "Factor Glossin wants to get rid of the auld Laird, and drive on the sale, for fear the heir-male should cast up upon them; for I have heard say, if there was an heir-male, they couldna sell the estate for auld Ellangowan's debt.""He had a son born a good many years ago," said the stranger; "he is dead, I suppose?""Nae man can say for that," answered the clerk mysteriously.

"Dead!" said the Deacon, "I'se warrant him dead lang syne; he hasna been heard o' these twenty years or thereby.""I wot weel it's no twenty years," said the landlady; "it's no abune seventeen at the outside in this very month; it made an unco noise ower a' this country--the bairn disappeared the very day that Supervisor Kennedy cam by his end.--If ye kenn'd this country lang syne, your honour wad maybe ken Frank Kennedy the Supervisor. He was a heartsome pleasant man, and company for the best gentlemen in the county, and muckle mirth he's made in this house. I was young then, sir, and newly married to Bailie Mac-Candlish, that's dead and gone--(a sigh)--and muckle fun I've had wi' the Supervisor. He was a daft dog--Oh, an he could hae hauden aff the smugglers a bit!

but he was aye venturesome.--And so ye see, sir, there was a king's sloop down in Wigton Bay, and Frank Kennedy, he behoved to have her up to chase Dirk Hatteraick's lugger--ye'll mind Dirk Hatteraick, Deacon? I dare say ye may have dealt wi' him--(the Deacon gave a sort of acquiescent nod and humph). He was a daring chield, and he fought his ship till she blew up like peelings of ingans; and Frank Kennedy he had been the first man to board, and he was flung like a quarter of a mile off, and fell into the water below the rock at Warroch Point, that they ca' the Gauger's Loup to this day.""And Mr. Bertram's child," said the stranger, "what is all this to him?""Ou, sir, the bairn aye held an unca wark wi' the Supervisor; and it was generally thought he went on board the vessel alang wi' him, as bairns are aye forward to be in mischief.""No, no," said the Deacon, "ye're clean out there, Luckie--for the young Laird was stown away by a randy gipsy woman they ca'd Meg Merrilies,--I mind her looks weel,--in revenge for Ellangowan having gar'd her be drumm'd through Kippletringan for stealing a silver spoon.""If ye'll forgie me, Deacon," said the precentor, "ye're e'en as far wrang as the gudewife.""And what is your edition of the story, sir?" said the stranger, turning to him with interest.

"That's maybe no sae canny to tell," said the precentor, with solemnity.

Upon being urged, however, to speak out, he preluded with, two or three large puffs of tobacco-smoke, and out of the cloudy sanctuary which these whiffs formed around him, delivered the following legend, having cleared his voice with one or two hems, and imitating, as near as he could, the eloquence which weekly thundered over his head from the pulpit.