The reader may recollect the description of this ruin in the twenty-seventh chapter of this narrative, as the vault in which young Bertram, under the auspices of Meg Merrilies, witnessed the death of Hatteraick's lieutenant. The tradition of the country added ghostly terrors to the natural awe inspired by the situation of this place, which terrors the gipsies, who so long inhabited the vicinity, had probably invented, or at least propagated, for their own advantage. It was said that, during the times of the Galwegian independence, one Hanlon MacDingawaie, brother to the reigning chief, Knarth MacDingawaie, murdered his brother and sovereign, in order to usurp the principality from his infant nephew, and that being pursued for vengeance by the faithful allies and retainers of the house, who espoused the cause of the lawful heir, he was compelled to retreat, with a few followers whom he had involved in his crime, to his impregnable tower called the Kaim of Derncleugh, where he defended himself until nearly reduced by famine, when, setting fire to the place, he and the small remaining garrison desperately perished by their own swords, rather than fall into the hands of their exasperated enemies. This tragedy, which, considering the wild times wherein it was placed, might have some foundation in truth, was larded with many legends of superstition and diablerie, so that most of the peasants of the neighbourhood, if benighted, would rather have chosen to make a considerable circuit, than pass these haunted walls. The lights, often seen around the tower when used as the rendezvous of the lawless characters by whom it was occasionally frequented, were accounted for, under authority of these tales of witchery, in a manner at once convenient for the private parties concerned, and satisfactory to the public.
Now, it must be confessed, that our friend Sampson, although a profound scholar and mathematician, had not travelled so far in philosophy as to doubt the reality of witchcraft or apparitions.
Born indeed at a time when a doubt in the existence of witches was interpreted as equivalent to a justification of their infernal practices, a belief of such legends had been impressed upon the Dominie as an article indivisible from his religious faith, and perhaps it would have been equally difficult to have induced him to doubt the one as the other. With these feelings, and in a thick misty day, which was already drawing to its close, Dominie Sampson did not pass the Kaim of Derncleugh without some feelings of tacit horror.
What then was his astonishment, when, on passing the door--that door which was supposed to have been placed there by one of the latter Lairds of Ellangowan to prevent presumptuous strangers from incurring the dangers of the haunted vault--that door, supposed to be always locked, and the key of which was popularly said to be deposited with the presbytery--that door, that very door, opened suddenly, and the figure of Meg Merrilies, well known, though not seen for many a revolving year, was placed at once before the eyes of the startled Dominie! She stood immediately before him in the footpath, confronting him so absolutely, that he could not avoid her except by fairly turning back, which his manhood prevented him from thinking of.
"I kenn'd ye wad be here," she said with her harsh and hollow voice "I ken wha ye seek; but ye maun do my bidding.""Get thee behind me!" said the alarmed Dominie--"Avoid ye!--Conjuro te, scelestissima--nequissima--spurcissima--iniquissima--atque miserrim--conjuro te!!!"--Meg stood her ground against this tremendous volley of superlatives, which Sampson hawked up from the pit of his stomach, and hurled at her in thunder. "Is the carl daft," she said, "wi' his glamour?""Conjuro," continued the Dominie, "abjuro contestor, atque viriliter impero tibi!"--"What, in the name of Sathan, are ye feared for, wi' your French gibberish, that would make a dog sick? Listen, ye stickit stibbler, [*A broken-down clerical probationer.] to what I tell ye, or ye sall rue it while there's a limb o' ye hings to anither!--Tell Colonel Mannering that I ken he's seeking me. He kens, and I ken, that the blood will be wiped out, and the lost will be found,"And Bertram's right and Bertram's mlght Shall meet on Ellangowan height.
Hae, there's a letter to him, I was gaun to send it in another way.--I canna write mysell; but I hae them that will baith write and read, and ride and rin for me. Tell him the time's coming now, and the weird's dreed [*The destiny is fulfilled.] and the wheel's turning. Bid him look at the stars as he has looked at them before.--Will ye mind a' this?""Assuredly," said the Dominie, "I am dubious--for, woman, I am perturbed at thy words, and my flesh quakes to hear thee.""'They'll do you nae ill though, and maybe muckle gude.""Avoid ye! I desire no good that comes by unlawful means.""Fule-body that thou art," said Meg, stepping up to him with a frown of indignation that made her dark eyes flash like lamps from under her bent brows,--"Fule-body! if I meant ye wrang, couldna Iclod [*Hurl.] ye ower that craig [*Steep rock.], and wad man ken how ye cam by your end mair than Frank Kennedy? Hear ye that, ye worricow?" [*Scarecrow.]