CHAPTER X
But see, his face is black and full of blood; His eye-balls farther out than when he lived, Staring full ghastly like a strangled man, His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch d with struggling, His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued
Henry VI, Part II
The Sheriff-depute of the county arrived at Ellangowan next morning bydaybreak. To this provincial magistrate the law of Scotland assignsjudicial powers of considerable extent, and the task of inquiring intoall crimes committed within his jurisdiction, the apprehension andcommitment of suspected persons, and so forth. [Footnote: The Scottishsheriff discharges, on such occasions as that now mentioned, prettymuch the same duty as a coroner.]
The gentleman who held the office in the shire of---at the time of thiscatastrophe was well born and well educated; and, though somewhatpedantic and professional in his habits, he enjoyed general respect asan active and intelligent magistrate. His first employment was toexamine all witnesses whose evidence could throw light upon thismysterious event, and make up the written report, proces verbal, orprecognition, as it is technically called, which the practice ofScotland has substituted for a coroner's inquest. Under the Sheriff'sminute and skilful inquiry, many circumstances appeared which seemedincompatible with the original opinion that Kennedy had accidentallyfallen from the cliffs. We shall briefly detail some of these.
The body had been deposited in a neighbouring fisher-hut, but withoutaltering the condition in which it was found. This was the first objectof the Sheriff's examination. Though fearfully crushed and mangled bythe fall from such a height, the corpse was found to exhibit a deep cutin the head, which, in the opinion of a skilful surgeon, must have beeninflicted by a broadsword or cutlass. The experience of this gentlemandiscovered other suspicious indications. The face was much blackened,the eyes distorted, and the veins of the neck swelled. A colouredhandkerchief, which the unfortunate man had worn round his neck, didnot present the usual appearance, but was much loosened, and the knotdisplaced and dragged extremely tight; the folds were also compressed,as if it had been used as a means of grappling the deceased, anddragging him perhaps to the precipice.
On the other hand, poor Kennedy's purse was found untouched; and, whatseemed yet more extraordinary, the pistols which he usually carriedwhen about to encounter any hazardous adventure were found in hispockets loaded. This appeared particularly strange, for he was knownand dreaded by the contraband traders as a man equally fearless anddexterous in the use of his weapons, of which he had given many signalproofs. The Sheriff inquired whether Kennedy was not in the practice ofcarrying any other arms? Most of Mr. Bertram's servants recollectedthat he generally had a couteau de chasse, or short hanger, but nonesuch was found upon the dead body; nor could those who had seen him onthe morning of the fatal day take it upon them to assert whether hethen carried that weapon or not.
The corpse afforded no other indicia respecting the fate of Kennedy;for, though the clothes were much displaced and the limbs dreadfullyfractured, the one seemed the probable, the other the certain,consequences of such a fall. The hands of the deceased were clenchedfast, and full of turf and earth; but this also seemed equivocal.
The magistrate then proceeded to the place where the corpse was firstdiscovered, and made those who had found it give, upon the spot, aparticular and detailed account of the manner in which it was lying. Alarge fragment of the rock appeared to have accompanied, or followed,the fall of the victim from the cliff above. It was of so solid andcompact a substance that it had fallen without any great diminution bysplintering; so that the Sheriff was enabled, first, to estimate theweight by measurement, and then to calculate, from the appearance ofthe fragment, what portion of it had been bedded into the cliff fromwhich it had descended. This was easily detected by the raw appearanceof the stone where it had not been exposed to the atmosphere. They thenascended the cliff, and surveyed the place from whence the stonyfragment had fallen. It seemed plain, from the appearance of the bed,that the mere weight of one man standing upon the projecting part ofthe fragment, supposing it in its original situation, could not havedestroyed its balance and precipitated it, with himself, from thecliff. At the same time, it appeared to have lain so loose that the useof a lever, or the combined strength of three or four men, might easilyhave hurled it from its position. The short turf about the brink of theprecipice was much trampled, as if stamped by the heels of men in amortal struggle, or in the act of some violent exertion. Traces of thesame kind, less visibly marked, guided the sagacious investigator tothe verge of the copsewood, which in that place crept high up the banktowards the top of the precipice.
With patience and perseverance they traced these marks into thethickest part of the copse, a route which no person would havevoluntarily adopted, unless for the purpose of concealment. Here theyfound plain vestiges of violence and struggling, from space to space.Small boughs were torn down, as if grasped by some resisting wretch whowas dragged forcibly along; the ground, where in the least degree softor marshy, showed the print of many feet; there were vestiges alsowhich might be those of human blood. At any rate it was certain thatseveral persons must have forced their passage among the oaks, hazels,and underwood with which they were mingled; and in some places appearedtraces as if a sack full of grain, a dead body, or something of thatheavy and solid description, had been dragged along the ground. In onepart of the thicket there was a small swamp, the clay of which waswhitish, being probably mixed with marl. The back of Kennedy's coatappeared besmeared with stains of the same colour.
At length, about a quarter of a mile from the brink of the fatalprecipice, the traces conducted them to a small open space of ground,very much trampled, and plainly stained with blood, although witheredleaves had been strewed upon the spot, and other means hastily taken toefface the marks, which seemed obviously to have been derived from adesperate affray. On one side of this patch of open ground was foundthe sufferer's naked hanger, which seemed to have been thrown into thethicket; on the other, the belt and sheath, which appeared to have beenhidden with more leisurely care and precaution.
The magistrate caused the footprints which marked this spot to becarefully measured and examined. Some corresponded to the foot of theunhappy victim; some were larger, some less; indicating that at leastfour or five men had been busy around him. Above all, here, and hereonly, were observed the vestiges of a child's foot; and as it could beseen nowhere else, and the hard horse-track which traversed the wood ofWarroch was contiguous to the spot, it was natural to think that theboy might have escaped in that direction during the confusion. But, ashe was never heard of, the Sheriff, who made a careful entry of allthese memoranda, did not suppress his opinion, that the deceased hadmet with foul play, and that the murderers, whoever they were, hadpossessed themselves of the person of the child Harry Bertram.
Every exertion was now made to discover the criminals. Suspicionhesitated between the smugglers and the gipsies. The fate of DirkHatteraick's vessel was certain. Two men from the opposite side ofWarroch Bay (so the inlet on the southern side of the Point of Warrochis called) had seen, though at a great distance, the lugger driveeastward, after doubling the headland, and, as they judged from hermanoeuvres, in a disabled state. Shortly after, they perceived that shegrounded, smoked, and finally took fire. She was, as one of themexpressed himself, 'in a light low' (bright flame) when they observed aking's ship, with her colours up, heave in sight from behind the cape.The guns of the burning vessel discharged themselves as the firereached them; and they saw her at length blow up with a greatexplosion. The sloop of war kept aloof for her own safety; and, afterhovering till the other exploded, stood away southward under a press ofsail. The Sheriff anxiously interrogated these men whether any boatshad left the vessel. They could not say, they had seen none; but theymight have put off in such a direction as placed the burning vessel,and the thick smoke which floated landward from it, between theircourse
and the witnesses' observation.
That the ship destroyed was Dirk Hatteraick's no one doubted. Hislugger was well known on the coast, and had been expected just at thistime. A letter from the commander of the king's sloop, to whom theSheriff made application, put the matter beyond doubt; he sent also anextract from his log-book of the transactions of the day, whichintimated their being on the outlook for a smuggling lugger, DirkHatteraick master, upon the information and requisition of FrancisKennedy, of his Majesty's excise service; and that Kennedy was to beupon the outlook on the shore, in case Hatteraick, who was known to bea desperate fellow, and had been repeatedly outlawed, should attempt torun his sloop aground. About nine o'clock A.M. they discovered a sailwhich answered the description of Hatteraick's vessel, chased her, and,after repeated signals to her to show colours and bring-to, fired uponher. The chase then showed Hamburgh colours and returned the fire; anda running fight was maintained for three hours, when, just as thelugger was doubling the Point of Warroch, they observed that themain-yard was shot in the slings, and that the vessel was disabled. Itwas not in the power of the man-of-war's men for some time to profit bythis circumstance, owing to their having kept too much in shore fordoubling the headland. After two tacks, they accomplished this, andobserved the chase on fire and apparently deserted. The fire havingreached some casks of spirits, which were placed on the deck, withother combustibles, probably on purpose, burnt with such fury that noboats durst approach the vessel, especially as her shotted guns weredischarging one after another by the heat. The captain had no doubtwhatever that the crew had set the vessel on fire and escaped in theirboats. After watching the conflagration till the ship blew up, hisMajesty's sloop, the Shark, stood towards the Isle of Man, with thepurpose of intercepting the retreat of the smugglers, who, though theymight conceal themselves in the woods for a day or two, would probablytake the first opportunity of endeavouring to make for this asylum. Butthey never saw more of them than is above narrated.
Such was the account given by William Pritchard, master and commanderof his Majesty's sloop of war, Shark, who concluded by regrettingdeeply that he had not had the happiness to fall in with the scoundrelswho had had the impudence to fire on his Majesty's flag, and with anassurance that, should he meet Mr. Dirk Hatteraick in any futurecruise, he would not fail to bring him into port under his stern, toanswer whatever might be alleged against him.
As, therefore, it seemed tolerably certain that the men on board thelugger had escaped, the death of Kennedy, if he fell in with them inthe woods, when irritated by the loss of their vessel and by the sharehe had in it, was easily to be accounted for. And it was not improbablethat to such brutal tempers, rendered desperate by their owncircumstances, even the murder of the child, against whose father, ashaving become suddenly active in the prosecution of smugglers,Hatteraick was known to have uttered deep threats, would not appear avery heinous crime.
Against this hypothesis it was urged that a crew of fifteen or twentymen could not have lain hidden upon the coast, when so close a searchtook place immediately after the destruction of their vessel; or, atleast, that if they had hid themselves in the woods, their boats musthave been seen on the beach; that in such precarious circumstances, andwhen all retreat must have seemed difficult if not impossible, it wasnot to be thought that they would have all united to commit a uselessmurder for the mere sake of revenge. Those who held this opinionsupposed either that the boats of the lugger had stood out to seawithout being observed by those who were intent upon gazing at theburning vessel, and so gained safe distance before the sloop got roundthe headland; or else that, the boats being staved or destroyed by thefire of the Shark during the chase, the crew had obstinately determinedto perish with the vessel. What gave some countenance to this supposedact of desperation was, that neither Dirk Hatteraick nor any of hissailors, all well-known men in the fair trade, were again seen uponthat coast, or heard of in the Isle of Man, where strict inquiry wasmade. On the other hand, only one dead body, apparently that of aseaman killed by a cannon-shot, drifted ashore. So all that could bedone was to register the names, description, and appearance of theindividuals belonging to the ship's company, and offer a reward for theapprehension of them, or any one of them, extending also to any person,not the actual murderer, who should give evidence tending to convictthose who had murdered Francis Kennedy.
Another opinion, which was also plausibly supported, went to chargethis horrid crime upon the late tenants of Derncleugh. They were knownto have resented highly the conduct of the Laird of Ellangowan towardsthem, and to have used threatening expressions, which every onesupposed them capable of carrying into effect. The kidnapping the childwas a crime much more consistent with their habits than with those ofsmugglers, and his temporary guardian might have fallen in an attemptto protect him. Besides, it was remembered that Kennedy had been anactive agent, two or three days before, in the forcible expulsion ofthese people from Derncleugh, and that harsh and menacing language hadbeen exchanged between him and some of the Egyptian patriarchs on thatmemorable occasion.
The Sheriff received also the depositions of the unfortunate father andhis servant, concerning what had passed at their meeting the caravan ofgipsies as they left the estate of Ellangowan. The speech of MegMerrilies seemed particularly suspicious. There was, as the magistrateobserved in his law language, damnum minatum--a damage, or evil turn,threatened--and malum secutum--an evil of the very kind predictedshortly afterwards following. A young woman, who had been gatheringnuts in Warroch wood upon the fatal day, was also strongly of opinion,though she declined to make positive oath, that she had seen MegMerrilies--at least a woman of her remarkable size and appearance--start suddenly out of a thicket; she said she had called to her byname, but, as the figure turned from her and made no answer, she wasuncertain if it were the gipsy or her wraith, and was afraid to gonearer to one who was always reckoned, in the vulgar phrase, 'nocanny.' This vague story received some corroboration from thecircumstance of a fire being that evening found in the gipsy's desertedcottage. To this fact Ellangowan and his gardener bore evidence. Yet itseemed extravagant to suppose that, had this woman been accessory tosuch a dreadful crime, she would have returned, that very evening onwhich it was committed, to the place of all others where she was mostlikely to be sought after.
Meg Merrilies was, however, apprehended and examined. She deniedstrongly having been either at Derncleugh or in the wood of Warrochupon the day of Kennedy's death; and several of her tribe made oath inher behalf, that she had never quitted their encampment, which was in aglen about ten miles distant from Ellangowan. Their oaths were indeedlittle to be trusted to; but what other evidence could be had in thecircumstances? There was one remarkable fact, and only one, which arosefrom her examination. Her arm appeared to be slightly wounded by thecut of a sharp weapon, and was tied up with a handkerchief of HarryBertram's. But the chief of the horde acknowledged he had 'correctedher' that day with his whinger; she herself, and others, gave the sameaccount of her hurt; and for the handkerchief, the quantity of linenstolen from Ellangowan during the last months of their residence on theestate easily accounted for it, without charging Meg with a moreheinous crime.
It was observed upon her examination that she treated the questionsrespecting the death of Kennedy, or 'the gauger,' as she called him,with indifference; but expressed great and emphatic scorn andindignation at being supposed capable of injuring little Harry Bertram.She was long confined in jail, under the hope that something might yetbe discovered to throw light upon this dark and bloody transaction.Nothing, however, occurred; and Meg was at length liberated, but undersentence of banishment from the county as a vagrant, common thief, anddisorderly person. No traces of the boy could ever be discovered; andat length the story, after making much noise, was gradually given up asaltogether inexplicable, and only perpetuated by the name of 'TheGauger's Loup,' which was generally bestowed on the cliff from whichthe unfortunate man had fallen or been precipitated.