The Sheriff received also the depositions of the unfortunate father and his servant, concerning what had passed at their meeting the caravan of gipsies as they left the estate of Ellangowan. The speech of Meg Merrilies seemed particularly suspicious. There was, as the magistrate observed in his law language, damnum minatum--a damage, or evil turn, threatened, and malum secutum--an evil of the very kind predicted shortly afterwards following. A young woman, who had been gathering nuts in Warroch wood upon the fatal day, was also strongly of opinion, though she declined to make positive oath, that she had seen Meg Merrilies, at least a woman of her remarkable size and appearance, start suddenly out of a thicket--she said she had called to her by name, but, as the figure turned from her, and made no answer, she was uncertain if it were the gipsy, or her wraith, and was afraid to go nearer to one who was always reckoned, in the vulgar phrase, no canny. This vague story received some corroboration from the circumstance of a fire being that evening found in the gipsy's deserted cottage. To this fact Ellangowan and his gardener bore evidence. Yet it seemed extravagant to suppose, that, had this woman been accessory to such a dreadful crime, she would have returned that very evening on which it was committed, to the place, of all others, where she was most likely to be sought after.
Meg Merrilies was, however, apprehended and examined. She denied strongly having been either at Derncleugh or in the wood of Warroch upon the day of Kennedy's death; and several of her tribe made oath in her behalf, that she had never quitted their encampment, which was in a glen about' ten miles distant from Ellangowan. Their oaths were indeed little to be trusted to; but what other evidence could be had in the circumstances? There was one remarkable fact, and only one, which arose from her examination. Her arm appeared to be slightly wounded by the cut of a sharp weapon, and was tied up with a handkerchief of Harry Bertram's. But the chief of the horde acknowledged he had "corrected her" that day with his whinger--she herself, and others, gave the same account of her hurt; and, for the handkerchief, the quantity of linen stolen from Ellangowan during the last months of their residence on the estate, easily accounted for it, without charging Meg with a more heinous crime.
It was observed upon her examination, that she treated the questions respecting the death of Kennedy, or "the gauger," as she called him, with indifference; but expressed great and emphatic scorn and indignation at being supposed capable of injuring little Harry Bertram. She was long confined in jail, under the hope that something might yet be discovered to throw light upon this dark and bloody transaction. Nothing, however, occurred; and Meg was at length liberated, but under sentence of banishment from the county, as a vagrant, common thief, and disorderly person. No traces of the boy could ever be discovered; and, at length, the story, after making much noise, was gradually given up as altogether inexplicable, and only perpetuated by the name of "The Gauger's Loup," which was generally bestowed on the cliff from which the unfortunate man had fallen, or been precipitated.
CHAPTER XI.
Enter Time, as Chorus.
I--that please some, try all; both joy and terror Of good and had; that make and unfold error--Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings. Impute it not a crime To me, or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap.
Winter's Tale.
Our narration is now about to make a large stride, and omit a space of nearly seventeen years; during which nothing occurred of any particular consequence with respect to the story we have undertaken to tell. The gap is a wide one; yet if the reader's experience in life enables him to look back on so many years, the space will scarce appear longer in his recollection, than the time consumed in turning these pages.
It was, then, in the month of November, about seventeen years after the catastrophe related in the fast chapter, that, during a cold and stormy night, a social group had closed around the kitchen fire of the Gordon Arms at Kippletringan, a small but comfortable inn, kept by Mrs. Mac-Candlish in that village. The conversation which passed among them will save me the trouble of telling the few events occurring during this chasm in our history, with which it is necessary that the reader should be acquainted.
Mrs. Mac-Candlish, throned in a comfortable easy-chair lined with black leather, was regaling herself, and a neighbouring gossip or two, with a cup of genuine tea, and at the same time keeping a sharp eye upon her domestics, as they went and came in prosecution of their various duties and commissions. The clerk and precentor of the parish enjoyed at a little distance his Saturday night's pipe, and aided its bland fumigation by an occasional sip of brandy-and-water. Deacon Bearcliff, a man of great importance in the village, combined the indulgence of both parties--he had his pipe and his teacup, the latter being laced with a little spirits.
One or two clowns sat at some distance, drinking their twopenny ale.
"Are ye sure the parlour's ready for them, and the fire burning clear, and the chimney no smoking?" said the hostess to a chambermaid.
She was answered in the affirmative.--"Ane wadna be uncivil to them, especially in their distress," said she, turning to the Deacon.