'Honoured and worthy sir,' groaned out the Dominie, 'I humbly crave
pardon; it was but verbum volans.'

'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.

'On a sudden,' continued Bertram, 'two or three men sprung out upon us,
and we were pulled from horseback. I have little recollection of anything
else, but that I tried to escape in the midst of a desperate scuffle, and
fell into the arms of a very tall woman who started from the bushes and
protected me for some time; the rest is all confusion and dread, a dim
recollection of a sea-beach and a cave, and of some strong potion which
lulled me to sleep for a length of time. In short, it is all a blank in
my memory until I recollect myself first an ill-used and half-starved
cabin-boy aboard a sloop, and then a schoolboy in Holland, under the
protection of an old merchant, who had taken some fancy for me.'

'And what account,' said Mr. Pleydell, 'did your guardian give of your
parentage?'

'A very brief one,' answered Bertram, 'and a charge to inquire no
farther. I was given to understand that my father was concerned in the
smuggling trade carried on on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was
killed in a skirmish with the revenue officers; that his correspondents
in Holland had a vessel on the coast at the time, part of the crew of
which were engaged in the affair, and that they brought me off after it
was over, from a motive of compassion, as I was left destitute by my
father's death. As I grew older there was much of this story seemed
inconsistent with my own recollections, but what could I do? I had no
means of ascertaining my doubts, nor a single friend with whom I could
communicate or canvass them. The rest of my story is known to Colonel
Mannering: I went out to India to be a clerk in a Dutch house; their
affairs fell into confusion; I betook myself to the military profession,
and, I trust, as yet I have not disgraced it.'

'Thou art a fine young fellow, I'll be bound for thee,' said Pleydell,
'and since you have wanted a father so long, I wish from my heart I could
claim the paternity myself. But this affair of young Hazlewood--'

'Was merely accidental,' said Bertram. 'I was travelling in Scotland for
pleasure, and, after a week's residence wi