o drink, and then
easily handcuffed while asleep. Glossin was delighted. He was under a
great hope that this might prove to be Brown himself. Instead, he
recognised an old acquaintance--no other than Dirk Hatteraick, the
smuggler. In the interview which followed, Dirk told Glossin some facts
which made him tremble. His possession of Ellangowan was threatened. The
true heir, the young lad Harry Bertram, lost on the night of the murder
of Frank Kennedy, had not perished as had been supposed. He had been
brought up by the principal partner of the Dutch firm to which he had
been bound apprentice, sent to the East Indies under the name of
Vanbeest Brown, and he was at that very moment upon the coast of
Solway--it might be very near to Ellangowan itself.

Glossin saw his hopes wither before his eyes. If the heir should find
out his rights, then the fruits of his villany, the estate of Ellangowan
itself, must return to its true owner. The lawyer secretly gave Dirk
Hatteraick a small file with which to rid himself of his irons, and then
bade his captors confine him in the strong-room of the ancient castle.

"The stanchions are falling to pieces with rust," he whispered to Dirk,
"the distance to the ground is not twelve feet, and the snow lies thick.
After that, you must steal my boat which lies below in the cove, and
wait till I come to you in the cave of the Wood of Warroch!"

So saying, he called the thief-takers in, and made his arrangements.
Glossin could not sleep that night. Eagerly he watched the window of the
old castle. He heard the iron bars fall outward upon the rocks with a
clinking sound, and feared that all was lost. The light in the window
was obscured, and presently he saw a black object drop upon the snow.
Then the little boat put out from the harbour, the wind caught the sail,
and she bore away in the direction of Warroch Point.

On the morrow, however, he overwhelmed Mac-Guffog with the full force of
his anger for his carelessness in allowing his prisoner to escape. Then
he sent his men off in different directions, as fast as they could, to
retake Hatteraick--in all directions, that is, except the true one.

Having thus disposed of the thief-takers, he set out for Warroch Head
alone. But the marks of his feet in the snow startled him. Any officer,
coming upon that trail, would run it up like a bloodhound. So he changed
his path, descending the cliff, and making his way cautiously along the
sea-beach where