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 properly dressed," wrote the Colonel to Mr. Mac-Morlan, "and let him accompany his young lady to Woodbourne!"
The dressing of Dominie Sampson was, however, easier said than done. For it would hurt the pride of the Dominie to have clothes presented to him as to a schoolboy. But Lucy Bertram soon settled the matter. The Dominie, she said, would never notice the difference, if they put one garment at a time into his sleeping room and took away the other. This was what her father had always done when the wardrobe of his dependent needed renewing. Nor had the Dominie ever showed the least consciousness of the change.
So said, so done. A good tailor, having come and looked Mr. Sampson over, readily agreed to provide him with two excellent suits, one black and one raven grey, such as would fit the Dominie as well as a man of such an out-of-the-way build could be fitted by merely human needles and shears.