signal,
for a boat had been seen hastily crossing the lake, and the sash of
Julia's window had been heard to shut down at the first alarm. Mr.
Mervyn said that, little as he liked playing the part of tale-bearer, he
felt that Julia was under his care, and he would not deserve his old
name of Downright Dunstable if he did not inform her father of what he
had discovered. Julia, he said, was both a charming and high spirited
girl, but she was too much her own father's daughter to be without
romantic ideas. On the whole, concluded Mr. Mervyn, it behooved the
Colonel to come at once to Mervyn Hall and look after his own property.

This was the letter which, put into his hands at a seaport town in
Scotland, lost Mannering the estate of Ellangowan, and threw the ancient
seat of many generations of Bertrams into the clutches of the
scoundrelly Glossin. For Colonel Mannering instantly posted off to the
south, having first of all sent despatches to Mr. Mac-Morlan by the
untrustworthy postilion--the same who arrived a day too late for the
sale.

When Colonel Mannering first went to Mervyn Hall, he could make nothing
of the case. Of course he believed Brown to have died by his hand in
India, and he could find no traces of any other man likely to be making
love to his daughter. Nevertheless he had brought back a plan with him
from Scotland, which, he thought, would put an end to all future
difficulties. The helplessness of Lucy Bertram had moved his heart.
Besides, he was more amused than he cared to own by the originality of
the Dominie. He had easily obtained, by means of Mr. Mac-Morlan, a
furnished house in the neighbourhood of Ellangowan, and he resolved for
a time at least to repose himself there after his campaigns. His
daughter Julia would thus have a companion in Lucy Bertram, and it was
easy to provide the Dominie with an occupation. For the library of an
uncle of Mannering's, who had been a learned bishop of the Church of
England, had been willed to him. The Dominie was the very man to put the
books in order. So indeed it was arranged, after some saucy remarks from
Miss Mannering as to the supposed Scottish accent and probable red hair
of her companion.

Then Colonel Mannering, accustomed to do nothing by halves, sent down
his directions about Dominie Sampson, whose heart indeed would have been
broken if he had been separated from the young mistress over whom he had
watched from childhood.

"Let the poor man be prope