"Do you remember nothing of your early life before you left Scotland?""Very imperfectly; yet I have a strong idea, perhaps more deeply impressed upon me by subsequent hard usage, that I was during my childhood the object of much solicitude and affection. I have an indistinct remembrance of a good-looking man whom I used to call papa, and of a lady who was infirm in health, and who, I think, must have been my mother but it is an imperfect and confused recollection. I remember too a tall thin kind tempered man in black, who used to teach me my letters and walk out with me;--and Ithink the very last time--"Here the Dominie could contain no longer. While every succeeding word served to prove that the child of his benefactor stood before him, he had struggled with the utmost difficulty to suppress his emotions; but, when the juvenile recollections of Bertram turned towards his tutor and his precepts, he was compelled to give way to his feelings. He rose hastily from his chair, and with clasped bands, trembling limbs, and streaming eyes, called out aloud, "Harry Bertram!--look at me--was I not the man?""Yes!" said Bertram, starting from his seat as if a sudden light had burst in upon his mind,--"Yes--that was my name!--and that is the voice and the figure of my kind old master!"The Dominie threw himself into his arms, pressed him a thousand times to his bosom in convulsions of transport, which shook his whole frame, sobbed hysterically, and, at length, in the emphatic language of Scripture, lifted up his voice and wept aloud. Colonel Mannering had recourse to his handkerchief; Pleydell made wry faces, and wiped the glasses of his spectacles; and honest Dinmont, after two loud blubbering explosions, exclaimed, "Deil's in the man! he's garr'd me do that I haena done since my auld mither died.""Come, come," said the counsellor at last, "silence in the court.--We have a clever party to contend with; we must lose no time in gathering our information--for anything I know, there may be something to be done before daybreak.""I will order a horse to be saddled, if you please," said the Colonel.
"No, no, time enough--time enough--but come, Dominie, I have allowed you a competent space to express your feelings. I must circumduce the term--you must let me proceed in my examination."The Dominie was habitually obedient to any one who chose to impose commands upon him; he sunk back into his chair, spread his checked handkerchief over his face, to serve, as I suppose, for the Grecian painter's veil, and, from the action of his folded hands, appeared for a time engaged in the act of mental thanksgiving. He then raised his eyes over the screen, as if to be assured that the pleasing apparition had not melted into air--then again sunk them to resume his internal act of devotion, until he felt himself compelled to give attention to the counsellor, from the interest which his questions excited.
"And now," said Mr. Pleydell, after several minute inquiries concerning his recollection of early events--"And now, Mr.
Bertram, for I think we ought in future to call you by your own proper name, will you have the goodness to let us know every particular which you can recollect concerning the mode of your leaving Scotland?""Indeed, sir, to say the truth, though the terrible outlines of that day are strongly impressed upon my memory, yet somehow the very terror which fixed them there has in a great measure confounded and confused the details. I recollect, however, that Iwas walking somewhere or other--in a wood, I think--""Oh yes, it was in Warroch Wood, my dear," said the Dominie.
"Hush, Mr. Sampson," said the lawyer.
"Yes, it was in a wood," continued Bertram, as long past and confused ideas arranged themselves in his reviving recollection "and some one was with me--this worthy and affectionate gentleman, I think.""Oh, ay, ay, Harry, Lord bless thee--it was even I myself.""Be silent, Dominie, and don't interrupt the evidence," said Pleydell.--"and so, sir?" to Bertram.
"And so, sir," continued Bertram, "like one of the changes of a dream, I thought I was on horseback before my guide.""No, no," exclaimed Sampson, "never did I put my own limbs, not to say thine, into such peril.
"On my word this is intolerable!--Look ye, Dominie, if you speak another word till I give you leave, I will read three sentences out of the Black Acts, whisk my cane round my head three times, undo all the magic of this night's work, and conjure Harry Bertram back again into Vanbeest Brown.""Honoured and worthy sir," groaned out the Dominie, "I humbly crave pardon--it was verbum volens.""Well, nolens volens, you must hold your tongue," said Pleydell.
"Pray, be silent, Mr. Sampson," said the Colonel; "it is--of great consequence to your recovered friend, that you permit Mr.
Pleydell to proceed in his inquiries."
"I am mute," said the rebuked Dominie.