highroad by a constable, who foresaw it would be necessary to
convey Hatteraick to jail. The driver, understanding what was
going on at Derncleugh, left his horses to the care of a
blackguard boy, confiding, it is to be supposed, rather in the
years and discretion of the cattle than in those of their keeper,
and set off full speed to see, as he expressed himself, 'whaten a
sort o' fun was gaun on.' He arrived just as the group of tenants
and peasants, whose numbers increased every moment, satiated with
gazing upon the rugged features of Hatteraick, had turned their
attention towards Bertram. Almost all of them, especially the aged
men who had seen Ellangowan in his better days, felt and
acknowledged the justice of Meg Merrilies's appeal. But the Scotch
are a cautious people: they remembered there was another in
possession of the estate, and they as yet only expressed their
feelings in low whispers to each other. Our friend Jock Jabos, the
postilion, forced his way into the middle of the circle; but no
sooner cast his eyes upon Bertram than he started back in
amazement, with a solemn exclamation, 'As sure as there's breath
in man, it's auld Ellangowan arisen from the dead!'

This public declaration of an unprejudiced witness was just the
spark wanted to give fire to the popular feeling, which burst
forth in three distinct shouts: 'Bertram for ever!' 'Long life to
the heir of Ellangowan!' 'God send him his ain, and to live among
us as his forebears did of yore!'

'I hae been seventy years on the land,' said one person.

'I and mine hae been seventy and seventy to that,' said another;
'I have a right to ken the glance of a Bertram.'