a
knoll above the ancient castle of Ellangowan to look once again upon the
home of his ancestors.

They were standing here, looking on the crumbling walls, when suddenly,
as if emerging from the earth, Meg Merrilies ascended from the hollow
way beneath, and stood before them.

"I sought ye at the house," she said, "but ye are right and I was wrong.
It is here we should meet--here, on the very spot where my eyes last saw
your father. And now, remember your promise and follow me!"

In spite of the unwillingness of Lucy and Julia to allow him to depart
with such a companion, Bertram and Dandie (for Meg invited Dinmont also
to follow her) hastened to obey the gipsy's summons. There was something
weird in the steady swiftness of her gait as she strode right forward
across the moor, taking no heed either of obstacle or of well-trodden
path. She seemed like some strange withered enchantress drawing men
after her by her witchcrafts. But Julia and Lucy were somewhat comforted
by the thought that if the gipsy had meditated any evil against Bertram,
she would not have asked so doughty a fighter as Dandie Dinmont to
accompany him.

They therefore made the best of their way home, and while they were
telling the adventure to the Colonel, young Hazlewood, who happened to
be at Woodbourne, courageously offered to follow after, to see that no
harm came to Dandie and his former antagonist.

Meg Merrilies led them through the wood of Warroch, along the same path
by which Harry had been carried on the night of the exciseman's murder.

Turning for a moment, she asked Bertram if he remembered the way.

"Not very clearly!" he answered.

"Ay," she said, "here was the very spot where Frank Kennedy was pulled
from his horse. I was hiding behind the bour-tree bush at the moment.
Sair, sair he strove and sair he cried for mercy. But he was in the
hands of them that never kenned the word."

Continuing her way, she led them downward to the sea by a secret and
rugged path, cut in the face of the cliff, and hidden among brushwood.
There on the shore lay the stone under which the body of Frank Kennedy
had been found crushed. A little farther on was the cave itself in which
the murderers had concealed themselves. The gipsy pointed mysteriously.

"He is there," she said, in a low voice, "the man who alone can
establish your right--Jansen Hatteraick, the tyrant of your youth, and
the murderer of Frank Kennedy. Follow me--I have put the fire bet