d
pregnancy, and, as she could not walk abroad herself, and the woman who
attended upon Harry was young and thoughtless, she prayed Dominie Sampson
to undertake the task of watching the boy in his rambles, when he should
not be otherwise accompanied. The Dominie loved his young charge, and was
enraptured with his own success in having already brought him so far in
his learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea of this early
prodigy of erudition being carried off by the gipsies, like a second Adam
Smith,[Footnote: The father of Economical Philosophy was, when a child,
actually carried off by gipsies, and remained some hours in their
possession.] was not to be tolerated; and accordingly, though the charge
was contrary to all his habits of life, he readily undertook it, and
might be seen stalking about with a mathematical problem in his head, and
his eye upon a child of five years old, whose rambles led him into a
hundred awkward situations. Twice was the Dominie chased by a
cross-grained cow, once he fell into the brook crossing at the
stepping-stones, and another time was bogged up to the middle in the
slough of Lochend, in attempting to gather a water-lily for the young
Laird. It was the opinion of the village matrons who relieved Sampson on
the latter occasion, 'that the Laird might as weel trust the care o' his
bairn to a potatoe bogle'; but the good Dominie bore all his disasters
with gravity and serenity equally imperturbable. 'Pro-di-gi-ous!' was the
only ejaculation they ever extorted from the much-enduring man.

The Laird had by this time determined to make root-and-branch work with
the Maroons of Derncleugh. The old servants shook their heads at his
proposal, and even Dominie Sampson ventured upon an indirect
remonstrance. As, however, it was couched in the oracular phrase, 'Ne
moveas Camerinam,' neither the allusion, nor the language in which it was
expressed, were calculated for Mr. Bertram's edification, and matters
proceeded against the gipsies in form of law. Every door in the hamlet
was chalked by the ground-officer, in token of a formal warning to remove
at next term. Still, however, they showed no symptoms either of
submission or of compliance. At length the term-day, the fatal Martinmas,
arrived, and violent measures of ejection were resorted to. A strong
posse of peace-officers, sufficient to render all resistance vain,
charged the inhabitants to depart by noon; and, as they did