It was some time before Colonel Mannering could find any one disposed to answer his reiterated questions concerning Ellangowan himself.  At length an old maidservant, who held her apron to her eyes as she spoke, told him ’the Laird was something better, and they hoped he would be able to leave the house that day.  Miss Lucy expected the chaise every moment, and, as the day was fine for the time o’ year, they had carried him in his easychair up to the green before the auld castle, to be out of the way of this unco spectacle.’  Thither Colonel Mannering went in quest of him, and soon came in sight of the little group, which consisted of four persons.  The ascent was steep, so that he had time to reconnoitre them as he advanced, and to consider in what mode he should make his address.

Mr. Bertram, paralytic and almost incapable of moving, occupied his easy-chair, attired in his nightcap and a loose camlet coat, his feet wrapped in blankets.  Behind him, with his hands crossed on the cane upon which he rested, stood Dominie Sampson, whom Mannering recognised at once.  Time had made no change upon him, unless that his black coat seemed more brown, and his gaunt cheeks more lank, than when Mannering last saw him.  On one side of the old man was a sylph-like form—­a young woman of about seventeen, whom the Colonel accounted to be his daughter.  She was looking from time to time anxiously towards the avenue, as if expecting the post-chaise; and between whiles busied herself in adjusting the blankets so as to protect her father from the cold, and in answering inquiries, which he seemed to make with a captious and querulous manner.  She did not trust herself to look towards the Place, although the hum of the assembled crowd must have drawn her attention in that direction.  The fourth person of the group was a handsome and genteel young man, who seemed to share Miss Bertram’s anxiety, and her solicitude to soothe and accommodate her parent.

This young man was the first who observed Colonel Mannering, and immediately stepped forward to meet him, as if politely to prevent his drawing nearer to the distressed group.  Mannering instantly paused and explained.  ‘He was,’ he said, ’a stranger to whom Mr. Bertram had formerly shown kindness and hospitality; he would not have intruded himself upon him at a period of distress, did it not seem to be in some degree a moment also of desertion; he wished merely to offer such services as might be in his power to Mr. Bertram and the young lady.’

He then paused at a little distance from the chair.  His old acquaintance gazed at him with lack-lustre eye, that intimated no tokens of recognition; the Dominie seemed too deeply sunk in distress even to observe his presence.  The young man spoke aside with Miss Bertram, who advanced timidly, and thanked Colonel Mannering for his goodness; ‘but,’ she said, the tears gushing fast into her eyes, ’her father, she feared, was not so much himself as to be able to remember him.’