"And how are ye now?" said the harsh and discordant tones of his female attendant "Said I not it would come upon you--ay, and in this very cave, where ye harboured after the deed.""Wetter and sturm, ye hag!" replied Hatteraick, "keep your deyvil's matins till they're wanted. Have you seen Glossin?""No," replied Meg Merrilies. "you've missed your blow, ye blood-spiller! and ye have nothing to expect from the tempter.""Hagel!" exclaimed the ruffian, "if I had him but by the throat!-and what am I to do then?""Do?" answered the gipsy; "die like a man, or be hanged like a dog!""Hanged, ye hag of Satan!-the hemp's not sown that shall hang me.""lt's sown, and it's grown, and it's heckled, and it's twisted. Did I not tell ye, when ye wad take away the boy Harry Bertram, in spite of my prayers,--did I not say he would come back when he had dree'd his weird in foreign land till his twenty-first year?--Did Inot say the auld fire would burn down to a spark, but wad kindle again?""Well, mother, you did say so," said Hatteraick in a tone that had something of despair in its accents; "and, donner and blitzen! Ibelieve you spoke the truth--that younker of Ellangowan has been a rock ahead to me all my life! and now, with Glossin's cursed contrivance, my crew have been cut off, my boats destroyed, and Idare say the lugger's taken--there were not men enough left on board to work her, far less to fight her--a dredge-boat might have taken her. And what will the owners say?--Hagel and sturm! I shall never dare go back again to Flushing.""You'll never need," said the gipsy.
"What are you doing there," said her companion, "and what makes you say that?"During this dialogue, Meg was heaping some flax loosely together.
Before answer to this question, she dropped a firebrand upon the flax, which had been previously steeped in some spirituous liquor, for it instantly caught fire, and rose in a vivid pyramid of the most brilliant light up to the very top of the vault. As it ascended, Meg answered the ruffian's question in a firm and steady voice:-"Because the Hour's come, and the Man."At the appointed signal, Bertram and Dinmont sprung over the brushwood, and rushed upon Hatteraick. Hazlewood, unacquainted with their plan of assault, was a moment later. The ruffian, who instantly saw he was betrayed, turned his first vengeance on Meg Merrilies, at whom he discharged a pistol. She fell, with a piercing and dreadful cry, between the shriek of pain and the sound of laughter, when at its highest and most suffocating height.
"I kenn'd it would be this way," she said.
Bertram, in his haste, slipped his foot upon the uneven rock which floored the cave; a fortunate stumble, for Hatteraick's second bullet whistled over him with so true and steady an aim, that had he been standing upright, it must have lodged in his brain. Ere the smuggler could draw another pistol, Dinmont closed with him, and endeavoured by main force to pinion down his arms. Such, however, was the wretch's personal strength, joined to the efforts of his despair, that, in spite of the gigantic force with which the Borderer grappled him, he dragged Dinmont through the blazing flax, and had almost succeeded in drawing a third pistol, which might have proved fatal to the honest farmer, had not Bertram, as well as Hazlewood, come to his assistance, when, by main force, and no ordinary exertion of it, they threw Hatteraick on the ground, disarmed him, and bound him. This scuffle, though it takes up some time in the narrative, passed in less than a single minute. When he was fairly mastered, after one or two desperate and almost convulsionary struggles, the ruffian lay perfectly still and silent. "He's gaun to die game ony how," said Dinmont; "weel, Ilike him na the waur for that."This observation honest Dandie made while he was shaking the blazing flax from his rough coat and shaggy black hair, some of which had been singed in the scuffle. "He is quiet now," said Bertram; "stay by him, and do not permit him to stir till I see whether the poor woman be alive or dead." With Hazlewood's assistance he raised Meg Merrilies.
"I kenn'd it would be this way," she muttered, and it's e'en this way that it should be.""The ball had penetrated the breast below the throat. It did not bleed much externally; but Bertrarn, accustomed to see gun-shot.
wounds, thought it the more alarming. "Good God! what shall we do for this poor woman?" said he to Hazlewood, the circumstances superseding the necessity of previous explanation or introduction to each other.
"My horse stands tied above in the wood," said Hazlewood. "I have been watching you these two hours--I will ride off for some assistants that may be trusted. Meanwhile, you had better defend the mouth of the cavern against every one till I return." He hastened away. Bertram, after binding Meg Merrilies's wound as well as he could, took station near the mouth of the cave with a cocked pistol in his hand; Dinmont continued to watch Hatteraick, keeping a grasp, like that of Hercules, on his breast. There was a dead silence in the cavern, only interrupted by the low and suppressed moaning of the wounded female, and by the hard breathing of the prisoner.
CHAPTER LV.
For though, seduced and led astray, Thou'st travell'd far and wander'd long, Thy God hath seen thee all the way, And all the turns that led thee wrong.
The Hall of Justice.