GUY MANNERING

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT


VOLUME I




GUY MANNERING

OR

THE ASTROLOGER


VOLUME I


     'Tis said that words and signs have power
     O'er sprites in planetary hour;
     But scarce I praise their venturous part
     Who tamper with such dangerous art.

          Lay of the Last Minstrel.



INTRODUCTION

The Novel or Romance of Waverley made its way to the public
slowly, of course, at first, but afterwards with such accumulating
popularity as to encourage the Author to a second attempt. He
looked about for a name and a subject; and the manner in which the
novels were composed cannot be better illustrated than by reciting
the simple narrative on which Guy Mannering was originally
founded; but to which, in the progress of the work, the production
ceased to bear any, even the most distant resemblance. The tale
was originally told me by an old servant of my father's, an
excellent old Highlander, without a fault, unless a preference to
mountain dew over less potent liquors be accounted one. He
believed as firmly in the story as in any part of his creed.

A grave and elderly person, according to old John MacKinlay's
account, while travelling in the wilder parts of Galloway, was
benighted. With difficulty he found his way to a country seat,
where, with the hospitality of the time and country, he was
readily admitted. The owner of the house, a gentleman of good
fortune, was much struck by the reverend appearance of his guest,
and apologised to him for a certain degree of confusion which must
unavoidably attend his reception, and could not escape his eye.
The lady of the house was, he said, confined to her apartment, and
on the point of making her husband a father for the first time,
though they had been ten years married. At such an emergency, the
laird said, he feared his guest might meet with some apparent
neglect.

'Not so, sir,' said the stranger; 'my wants are few, and easily
supplied, and I trust the present circumstances may even afford an
opportunity of showing my gratitude for your hospitality. Let me
only request that I may be informed of the exact minute of the
birth; and I hope to be able to put you in possession of some
particulars which may influence in an important manner the future
prospects of the child now about to come into this busy and
changeful world. I will not conceal from you that I am skilful in
understanding and interpreting the movements of those planetary
bodies which exert their influences on the destiny of mortals. It
is a science which I do not practise, like others who call
themselves astrologers, for hire or reward; for I have a competent
estate, and only use the knowledge I possess for the benefit of
those in whom I feel an interest.' The laird bowed in respect and
gratitude, and the stranger was accommodated with an apartment
which commanded an ample view of the astral regions.

The guest spent a part of the night in ascertaining the position
of the heavenly bodies, and calculating their probable influence;
until at length the result of his observations induced him to send
for the father and conjure him in the most solemn manner to cause
the assistants to retard the birth if practicable, were it but for
five minutes. The answer declared this to be impossible; and
almost in the instant that the message was returned the father and
his guest were made acquainted with the birth of a boy.

The Astrologer on the morrow met the party who gathered around the
breakfast table with looks so grave and ominous as to alarm the
fears of the father, who had hitherto exulted in the prospects
held out by the birth of an heir to his ancient property, failing
which event it must have passed to a distant branch of the family.
He hastened to draw the stranger into a private room.

'I fear from your looks,' said the father, 'that you have bad
tidings to tell me of my young stranger; perhaps God will resume
the blessing He has bestowed ere he attains the age of manhood, or
perhaps he is destined to be unworthy of the affection which we
are naturally disposed to devote to our offspring?'

'Neither the one nor the other,' answered the stranger; 'unless my
judgment greatly err, the infant will survive the years of
minority, and in temper and disposition will prove all that his
parents can wish. But with much in his horoscope which promises
many blessings, there is one evil influence strongly predominant,
which threatens to subject him to an unhallowed and unhappy
temptation about the time when he shall attain the age of twenty-
one, which period, the constellations intimate, will be the crisis
of his fate. In what shape, or with what peculiar urgency, this
temptation may beset him, my art cannot discover.'

'Your knowledge, then, can afford us no defence,' said the anxious
father, 'against the threatened evil?'

'Pardon me,' answered the stranger, 'it can. The influence of the
constellations is powerful; but He who made the heavens is more
powerful than all, if His aid be invoked in sincerity and truth.
You ought to dedicate this boy to the immediate service of his
Maker, with as much sincerity as Samuel was devoted to the worship
in the Temple by his parents. You must regard him as a being
separated from the rest of the world. In childhood, in boyhood,
you must surround him with the pious and virtuous, and protect him
to the utmost of your power from the sight or hearing of any
crime, in word or action. He must be educated in religious and
moral principles of the strictest description. Let him not enter
the world, lest he learn to partake of its follies, or perhaps of
its vices. In short, preserve him as far as possible from all sin,
save that of which too great a portion belongs to all the fallen
race of Adam. With the approach of his twenty-first birthday comes
the crisis of his fate. If he survive it, he will be happy and
prosperous on earth, and a chosen vessel among those elected for
heaven. But if it be otherwise--' The Astrologer stopped, and
sighed deeply.

'Sir,' replied the parent, still more alarmed than before, 'your
words are so kind, your advice so serious, that I will pay the
deepest attention to your behests; but can you not aid me farther
in this most important concern? Believe me, I will not be
ungrateful.'

'I require and deserve no gratitude for doing a good action,' said
the stranger, 'in especial for contributing all that lies in my
power to save from an abhorred fate the harmless infant to whom,
under a singular conjunction of planets, last night gave life.
There is my address; you may write to me from time to time
concerning the progress of the boy in religious knowledge. If he
be bred up as I advise, I think it will be best that he come to my
house at the time when the fatal and decisive period approaches,
that is, before he has attained his twenty-first year complete. If
you send him such as I desire, I humbly trust that God will
protect His own through whatever strong temptation his fate may
subject him to.' He then gave his host his address, which was a
country seat near a post town in the south of England, and bid him
an affectionate farewell.

The mysterious stranger departed, but his words remained impressed
upon the mind of the anxious parent. He lost his lady while his
boy was still in infancy. This calamity, I think, had been
predicted by the Astrologer; and thus his confidence, which, like
most people of the period, he had freely given to the science, was
riveted and confirmed. The utmost care, therefore, was taken to
carry into effect the severe and almost ascetic plan of education
which the sage had enjoined. A tutor of the strictest principles
was employed to superintend the youth's education; he was
surrounded by domestics of the most established character, and
closely watched and looked after by the anxious father himself.

The years of infancy, childhood, and boyhood passed as the father
could have wished. A young Nazarene could not have been bred up
with more rigour. All that was evil was withheld from his
observation: he only heard what was pure in precept, he only
witnessed what was worthy in practice.

But when the boy began to be lost in the youth, the attentive
father saw cause for alarm. Shades of sadness, which gradually
assumed a darker character, began to over-cloud the young man's
temper. Tears, which seemed involuntary, broken sleep, moonlight
wanderings, and a melancholy for which he could assign no reason,
seemed to threaten at once his bodily health and the stability of
his mind. The Astrologer was consulted by letter, and returned for
answer that this fitful state of mind was but the commencement of
his trial, and that the poor youth must undergo more and more
desperate struggles with the evil that assailed him. There was no
hope of remedy, save that he showed steadiness of mind in the
study of the Scriptures. 'He suffers, continued the letter of the
sage,' from the awakening of those harpies the passions, which
have slept with him, as with others, till the period of life which
he has now attained. Better, far better, that they torment him by
ungrateful cravings than that he should have to repent having
satiated them by criminal indulgence.'

The dispositions of the young man were so excellent that he
combated, by reason and religion, the fits of gloom which at times
overcast his mind, and it was not till he attained the
commencement of his twenty-first year that they assumed a
character which made his father tremble for the consequences. It
seemed as if the gloomiest and most hideous of mental maladies was
taking the form of religious despair. Still the youth was gentle,
courteous, affectionate, and submissive to his father's will, and
resisted with all his power the dark suggestions which were
breathed into his mind, as it seemed by some emanation of the Evil
Principle, exhorting him, like the wicked wife of Job, to curse
God and die.

The time at length arrived when he was to perform what was then
thought a long and somewhat perilous journey, to the mansion of
the early friend who had calculated his nativity. His road lay
through several places of interest, and he enjoyed the amusement
of travelling more than he himself thought would have been
possible. Thus he did not reach the place of his destination till
noon on the day preceding his birthday. It seemed as if he had
been carried away with an unwonted tide of pleasurable sensation,
so as to forget in some degree what his father had communicated
concerning the purpose of his journey. He halted at length before
a respectable but solitary old mansion, to which he was directed
as the abode of his father's friend.

The servants who came to take his horse told him he had been
expected for two days. He was led into a study, where the
stranger, now a venerable old man, who had been his father's
guest, met him with a shade of displeasure, as well as gravity, on
his brow. 'Young man,' he said, 'wherefore so slow on a journey of
such importance?' 'I thought,' replied the guest, blushing and
looking downward,' that there was no harm in travelling slowly and
satisfying my curiosity, providing I could reach your residence by
this day; for such was my father's charge.' 'You were to blame,'
replied the sage, 'in lingering, considering that the avenger of
blood was pressing on your footsteps. But you are come at last,
and we will hope for the best, though the conflict in which you
are to be engaged will be found more dreadful the longer it is
postponed. But first accept of such refreshments as nature
requires to satisfy, but not to pamper, the appetite.'

The old man led the way into a summer parlour, where a frugal meal
was placed on the table. As they sat down to the board they were
joined by a young lady about eighteen years of age, and so lovely
that the sight of her carried off the feelings of the young
stranger from the peculiarity and mystery of his own lot, and
riveted his attention to everything she did or said. She spoke
little and it was on the most serious subjects. She played on the
harpsichord at her father's command, but it was hymns with which
she accompanied the instrument. At length, on a sign from the
sage, she left the room, turning on the young stranger as she
departed a look of inexpressible anxiety and interest.

The old man then conducted the youth to his study, and conversed
with him upon the most important points of religion, to satisfy
himself that he could render a reason for the faith that was in
him. During the examination the youth, in spite of himself, felt
his mind occasionally wander, and his recollections go in quest of
the beautiful vision who had shared their meal at noon. On such
occasions the Astrologer looked grave, and shook his head at this
relaxation of attention; yet, on the whole, he was pleased with
the youth's replies.

At sunset the young man was made to take the bath; and, having
done so, he was directed to attire himself in a robe somewhat like
that worn by Armenians, having his long hair combed down on his
shoulders, and his neck, hands, and feet bare. In this guise he
was conducted into a remote chamber totally devoid of furniture,
excepting a lamp, a chair, and a table, on which lay a Bible.
'Here,' said the Astrologer, 'I must leave you alone to pass the
most critical period of your life. If you can, by recollection of
the great truths of which we have spoken, repel the attacks which
will be made on your courage and your principles, you have nothing
to apprehend. But the trial will be severe and arduous.' His
features then assumed a pathetic solemnity, the tears stood in his
eyes, and his voice faltered with emotion as he said, 'Dear child,
at whose coming into the world I foresaw this fatal trial, may God
give thee grace to support it with firmness!'

The young man was left alone; and hardly did he find himself so,
when, like a swarm of demons, the recollection of all his sins of
omission and commission, rendered even more terrible by the
scrupulousness with which he had been educated, rushed on his
mind, and, like furies armed with fiery scourges, seemed
determined to drive him to despair. As he combated these horrible
recollections with distracted feelings, but with a resolved mind,
he became aware that his arguments were answered by the sophistry
of another, and that the dispute was no longer confined to his own
thoughts. The Author of Evil was present in the room with him in
bodily shape, and, potent with spirits of a melancholy cast, was
impressing upon him the desperation of his state, and urging
suicide as the readiest mode to put an end to his sinful career.
Amid his errors, the pleasure he had taken in prolonging his
journey unnecessarily, and the attention which he had bestowed on
the beauty of the fair female when his thoughts ought to have been
dedicated to the religious discourse of her father, were set
before him in the darkest colours; and he was treated as one who,
having sinned against light, was therefore deservedly left a prey
to the Prince of Darkness.

As the fated and influential hour rolled on, the terrors of the
hateful Presence grew more confounding to the mortal senses of the
victim, and the knot of the accursed sophistry became more
inextricable in appearance, at least to the prey whom its meshes
surrounded. He had not power to explain the assurance of pardon
which he continued to assert, or to name the victorious name in
which he trusted. But his faith did not abandon him, though he
lacked for a time the power of expressing it. 'Say what you will,'
was his answer to the Tempter; 'I know there is as much betwixt
the two boards of this Book as can ensure me forgiveness for my
transgressions and safety for my soul.' As he spoke, the clock,
which announced the lapse of the fatal hour, was heard to strike.
The speech and intellectual powers of the youth were instantly and
fully restored; he burst forth into prayer, and expressed in the
most glowing terms his reliance on the truth and on the Author of
the Gospel. The Demon retired, yelling and discomfited, and the
old man, entering the apartment, with tears congratulated his
guest on his victory in the fated struggle.

The young man was afterwards married to the beautiful maiden, the
first sight of whom had made such an impression on him, and they
were consigned over at the close of the story to domestic
happiness. So ended John MacKinlay's legend.

The Author of Waverley had imagined a possibility of framing an
interesting, and perhaps not an unedifying, tale out of the
incidents of the life of a doomed individual, whose efforts at
good and virtuous conduct were to be for ever disappointed by the
intervention, as it were, of some malevolent being, and who was at
last to come off victorious from the fearful struggle. In short,
something was meditated upon a plan resembling the imaginative
tale of Sintram and his Companions, by Mons. le Baron de la Motte
Fouque, although, if it then existed, the author had not seen it.

The scheme projected may be traced in the three or four first
chapters of the work; but farther consideration induced the author
to lay his purpose aside. It appeared, on mature consideration,
that astrology, though its influence was once received and
admitted by Bacon himself, does not now retain influence over the
general mind sufficient even to constitute the mainspring of a
romance. Besides, it occurred that to do justice to such a subject
would have required not only more talent than the Author could be
conscious of possessing, but also involved doctrines and
discussions of a nature too serious for his purpose and for the
character of the narrative. In changing his plan, however, which
was done in the course of printing, the early sheets retained the
vestiges of the original tenor of the story, although they now
hang upon it as an unnecessary and unnatural incumbrance. The
cause of such vestiges occurring is now explained and apologised
for.

It is here worthy of observation that, while the astrological
doctrines have fallen into general contempt, and been supplanted
by superstitions of a more gross and far less beautiful character,
they have, even in modern days, retained some votaries.

One of the most remarkable believers in that forgotten and
despised science was a late eminent professor of the art of
legerdemain. One would have thought that a person of this
description ought, from his knowledge of the thousand ways in
which human eyes could be deceived, to have been less than others
subject to the fantasies of superstition. Perhaps the habitual use
of those abstruse calculations by which, in a manner surprising to
the artist himself, many tricks upon cards, etc., are performed,
induced this gentleman to study the combination of the stars and
planets, with the expectation of obtaining prophetic
communications.

He constructed a scheme of his own nativity, calculated according
to such rules of art as he could collect from the best
astrological authors. The result of the past he found agreeable to
what had hitherto befallen him, but in the important prospect of
the future a singular difficulty occurred. There were two years
during the course of which he could by no means obtain any exact
knowledge whether the subject of the scheme would be dead or
alive. Anxious concerning so remarkable a circumstance, he gave
the scheme to a brother astrologer, who was also baffled in the
same manner. At one period he found the native, or subject, was
certainly alive; at another that he was unquestionably dead; but a
space of two years extended between these two terms, during which
he could find no certainty as to his death or existence.

The astrologer marked the remarkable circumstance in his diary,
and continued his exhibitions in various parts of the empire until
the period was about to expire during which his existence had been
warranted as actually ascertained. At last, while he was
exhibiting to a numerous audience his usual tricks of legerdemain,
the hands whose activity had so often baffled the closest observer
suddenly lost their power, the cards dropped from them, and he
sunk down a disabled paralytic. In this state the artist
languished for two years, when he was at length removed by death.
It is said that the diary of this modern astrologer will soon be
given to the public.

The fact, if truly reported, is one of those singular coincidences
which occasionally appear, differing so widely from ordinary
calculation, yet without which irregularities human life would not
present to mortals, looking into futurity, the abyss of
impenetrable darkness which it is the pleasure of the Creator it
should offer to them. Were everything to happen in the ordinary
train of events, the future would be subject to the rules of
arithmetic, like the chances of gaming. But extraordinary events
and wonderful runs of luck defy the calculations of mankind and
throw impenetrable darkness on future contingencies.

To the above anecdote, another, still more recent, may be here
added. The author was lately honoured with a letter from a
gentleman deeply skilled in these mysteries, who kindly undertook
to calculate the nativity of the writer of Guy Mannering, who
might be supposed to be friendly to the divine art which he
professed. But it was impossible to supply data for the
construction of a horoscope, had the native been otherwise
desirous of it, since all those who could supply the minutiae of
day, hour, and minute have been long removed from the mortal
sphere.

Having thus given some account of the first idea, or rude sketch,
of the story, which was soon departed from, the Author, in
following out the plan of the present edition, has to mention the
prototypes of the principal characters in Guy Mannering.

Some circumstances of local situation gave the Author in his youth
an opportunity of seeing a little, and hearing a great deal, about
that degraded class who are called gipsies; who are in most cases
a mixed race between the ancient Egyptians who arrived in Europe
about the beginning of the fifteenth century and vagrants of
European descent.

The individual gipsy upon whom the character of Meg Merrilies was
founded was well known about the middle of the last century by the
name of Jean Gordon, an inhabitant of the village of Kirk Yetholm,
in the Cheviot Hills, adjoining to the English Border. The Author
gave the public some account of this remarkable person in one of
the early numbers of Blackwood's Magazine, to the following
purpose:--

'My father remembered old Jean Gordon of Yetholm, who had great
sway among her tribe. She was quite a Meg Merrilies, and possessed
the savage virtue of fidelity in the same perfection. Having been
often hospitably received at the farmhouse of Lochside, near
Yetholm, she had carefully abstained from committing any
depredations on the farmer's property. But her sons (nine in
number) had not, it seems, the same delicacy, and stole a brood-
sow from their kind entertainer. Jean was mortified at this
ungrateful conduct, and so much ashamed of it that she absented
herself from Lochside for several years.

'It happened in course of time that, in consequence of some
temporary pecuniary necessity, the goodman of Lochside was obliged
to go to Newcastle to raise some money to pay his rent. He
succeeded in his purpose, but, returning through the mountains of
Cheviot, he was benighted and lost his way.

'A light glimmering through the window of a large waste barn,
which had survived the farm-house to which it had once belonged,
guided him to a place of shelter; and when he knocked at the door
it was opened by Jean Gordon. Her very remarkable figure, for she
was nearly six feet high, and her equally remarkable features and
dress, rendered it impossible to mistake her for a moment, though
he had not seen her for years; and to meet with such a character
in so solitary a place, and probably at no great distance from her
clan, was a grievous surprise to the poor man, whose rent (to lose
which would have been ruin) was about his person.

'Jean set up a loud shout of joyful recognition--

"Eh, sirs! the winsome gudeman of Lochside! Light down, light
down; for ye maunna gang farther the night, and a friend's house
sae near." The farmer was obliged to dismount and accept of the
gipsy's offer of supper and a bed. There was plenty of meat in the
barn, however it might be come by, and preparations were going on
for a plentiful repast, which the farmer, to the great increase of
his anxiety, observed was calculated for ten or twelve guests, of
the same description, probably, with his landlady.

'Jean left him in no doubt on the subject. She brought to his
recollection the story of the stolen sow, and mentioned how much
pain and vexation it had given her. Like other philosophers, she
remarked that the world grew worse daily; and, like other parents,
that the bairns got out of her guiding, and neglected the old
gipsy regulations, which commanded them to respect in their
depredations the property of their benefactors. The end of all
this was an inquiry what money the farmer had about him; and an
urgent request, or command, that he would make her his purse-
keeper, since the bairns, as she called her sons, would be soon
home. The poor farmer made a virtue of necessity, told his story,
and surrendered his gold to Jean's custody. She made him put a few
shillings in his pocket, observing, it would excite suspicion
should he be found travelling altogether penniless.

'This arrangement being made, the farmer lay down on a sort of
shake-down, as the Scotch call it, or bed-clothes disposed upon
some straw, but, as will easily be believed, slept not.

'About midnight the gang returned, with various articles of
plunder, and talked over their exploits in language which made the
farmer tremble. They were not long in discovering they had a
guest, and demanded of Jean whom she had got there.

'"E'en the winsome gudeman of Lochside, poor body," replied Jean;
"he's been at Newcastle seeking for siller to pay his rent, honest
man, but deil-be-lickit he's been able to gather in, and sae he's
gaun e'en hame wi' a toom purse and a sair heart."

"'That may be, Jean," replied one of the banditti, "but we maun
ripe his pouches a bit, and see if the tale be true or no." Jean
set up her throat in exclamations against this breach of
hospitality, but without producing any change in their
determination. The farmer soon heard their stifled whispers and
light steps by his bedside, and understood they were rummaging his
clothes. When they found the money which the providence of Jean
Gordon had made him retain, they held a consultation if they
should take it or no; but the smallness of the booty, and the
vehemence of Jean's remonstrances, determined them in the
negative. They caroused and went to rest. As soon as day dawned
Jean roused her guest, produced his horse, which she had
accommodated behind the hallan, and guided him for some miles,
till he was on the highroad to Lochside. She then restored his
whole property; nor could his earnest entreaties prevail on her to
accept so much as a single guinea.

'I have heard the old people at Jedburgh say, that all Jean's sons
were condemned to die there on the same day. It is said the jury
were equally divided, but that a friend to justice, who had slept
during the whole discussion, waked suddenly and gave his vote for
condemnation in the emphatic words, "Hang them a'!" Unanimity is
not required in a Scottish jury, so the verdict of guilty was
returned. Jean was present, and only said, "The Lord help the
innocent in a day like this!" Her own death was accompanied with
circumstances of brutal outrage, of which poor Jean was in many
respects wholly undeserving. She had, among other demerits, or
merits, as the reader may choose to rank it, that of being a
stanch Jacobite. She chanced to be at Carlisle upon a fair or
market-day, soon after the year 1746, where she gave vent to her
political partiality, to the great offence of the rabble of that
city. Being zealous in their loyalty when there was no danger, in
proportion to the tameness with which they had surrendered to the
Highlanders in 1745, the mob inflicted upon poor Jean Gordon no
slighter penalty than that of ducking her to death in the Eden. It
was an operation of some time, for Jean was a stout woman, and,
struggling with her murderers, often got her head above water;
and, while she had voice left, continued to exclaim at such
intervals, "Charlie yet! Charlie yet!" When a child, and among the
scenes which she frequented, I have often heard these stories, and
cried piteously for poor Jean Gordon.

'Before quitting the Border gipsies, I may mention that my
grandfather, while riding over Charterhouse Moor, then a very
extensive common, fell suddenly among a large band of them, who
were carousing in a hollow of the moor, surrounded by bushes. They
instantly seized on his horse's bridle with many shouts of
welcome, exclaiming (for he was well known to most of them) that
they had often dined at his expense, and he must now stay and
share their good cheer. My ancestor was, a little alarmed, for,
like the goodman of Lochside, he had more money about his person
than he cared to risk in such society. However, being naturally a
bold, lively-spirited man, he entered into the humour of the thing
and sate down to the feast, which consisted of all the varieties
of game, poultry, pigs, and so forth that could be collected by a
wide and indiscriminate system of plunder. The dinner was a very
merry one; but my relative got a hint from some of the older
gipsies to retire just when--
     The mirth and fun grew fast and furious,

and, mounting his horse accordingly, he took a French leave of his
entertainers, but without experiencing the least breach of
hospitality. I believe Jean Gordon was at this
festival.'[Footnote: Blackwood's Magazine, vol. I, p. 54]

Notwithstanding the failure of Jean's issue, for which

     Weary fa' the waefu' wuddie,

a granddaughter survived her, whom I remember to have seen. That
is, as Dr. Johnson had a shadowy recollection of Queen Anne as a
stately lady in black, adorned with diamonds, so my memory is
haunted by a solemn remembrance of a woman of more than female
height, dressed in a long red cloak, who commenced acquaintance by
giving me an apple, but whom, nevertheless, I looked on with as
much awe as the future Doctor, High Church and Tory as he was
doomed to be, could look upon the Queen. I conceive this woman to
have been Madge Gordon, of whom an impressive account is given in
the same article in which her mother Jean is mentioned, but not by
the present writer:--

'The late Madge Gordon was at this time accounted the Queen of the
Yetholm clans. She was, we believe, a granddaughter of the
celebrated Jean Gordon, and was said to have much resembled her in
appearance. The following account of her is extracted from the
letter of a friend, who for many years enjoyed frequent and
favourable opportunities of observing the characteristic
peculiarities of the Yetholm tribes:--"Madge Gordon was descended
from the Faas by the mother's side, and was married to a Young.
She was a remarkable personage--of a very commanding presence and
high stature, being nearly six feet high. She had a large aquiline
nose, penetrating eyes, even in her old age, bushy hair, that hung
around her shoulders from beneath a gipsy bonnet of straw, a short
cloak of a peculiar fashion, and a long staff nearly as tall as
herself. I remember her well; every week she paid my father a
visit for her awmous when I was a little boy, and I looked upon
Madge with no common degree of awe and terror. When she spoke
vehemently (for she made loud complaints) she used to strike her
staff upon the floor and throw herself into an attitude which it
was impossible to regard with indifference. She used to say that
she could bring from the remotest parts of the island friends to
revenge her quarrel while she sat motionless in her cottage; and
she frequently boasted that there was a time when she was of still
more considerable importance, for there were at her wedding fifty
saddled asses, and unsaddled asses without number. If Jean Gordon
was the prototype of the CHARACTER of Meg Merrilies, I imagine
Madge must have sat to the unknown author as the representative of
her PERSON."'[Footnote: Blackwood's Magazine, vol. I, p. 56.]

How far Blackwood's ingenious correspondent was right, how far
mistaken, in his conjecture the reader has been informed.

To pass to a character of a very different description, Dominie
Sampson,--the reader may easily suppose that a poor modest humble
scholar who has won his way through the classics, yet has fallen
to leeward in the voyage of life, is no uncommon personage in a
country where a certain portion of learning is easily attained by
those who are willing to suffer hunger and thirst in exchange for
acquiring Greek and Latin. But there is a far more exact prototype
of the worthy Dominie, upon which is founded the part which he
performs in the romance, and which, for certain particular
reasons, must be expressed very generally.

Such a preceptor as Mr. Sampson is supposed to have been was
actually tutor in the family of a gentleman of considerable
property. The young lads, his pupils, grew up and went out in the
world, but the tutor continued to reside in the family, no
uncommon circumstance in Scotland in former days, where food and
shelter were readily afforded to humble friends and dependents.
The laird's predecessors had been imprudent, he himself was
passive and unfortunate. Death swept away his sons, whose success
in life might have balanced his own bad luck and incapacity. Debts
increased and funds diminished, until ruin came. The estate was
sold; and the old man was about to remove from the house of his
fathers to go he knew not whither, when, like an old piece of
furniture, which, left alone in its wonted corner, may hold
together for a long while, but breaks to pieces on an attempt to
move it, he fell down on his own threshold under a paralytic
affection.

The tutor awakened as from a dream. He saw his patron dead, and
that his patron's only remaining child, an elderly woman, now
neither graceful nor beautiful, if she ever had been either the
one or the other, had by this calamity become a homeless and
penniless orphan. He addressed her nearly in the words which
Dominie Sampson uses to Miss Bertram, and professed his
determination not to leave her. Accordingly, roused to the
exercise of talents which had long slumbered, he opened a little
school and supported his patron's child for the rest of her life,
treating her with the same humble observance and devoted attention
which he had used towards her in the days of her prosperity.

Such is the outline of Dominie Sampson's real story, in which
there is neither romantic incident nor sentimental passion; but
which, perhaps, from the rectitude and simplicity of character
which it displays, may interest the heart and fill the eye of the
reader as irresistibly as if it respected distresses of a more
dignified or refined character.

These preliminary notices concerning the tale of Guy Mannering and
some of the characters introduced may save the author and reader
in the present instance the trouble of writing and perusing a long
string of detached notes.

I may add that the motto of this novel was taken from the Lay of
the Last Minstrel, to evade the conclusions of those who began to
think that, as the author of Waverley never quoted the works of
Sir Walter Scott, he must have reason for doing so, and that the
circumstances might argue an identity between them.

ABBOTSFORD, August 1, 1829.




ADDITIONAL NOTE

GALWEGIAN LOCALITIES AND PERSONAGES WHICH HAVE BEEN SUPPOSED TO BE
ALLUDED TO IN THE NOVEL

An old English proverb says, that more know Tom Fool than Tom Fool
knows; and the influence of the adage seems to extend to works
composed under the influence of an idle or foolish planet. Many
corresponding circumstances are detected by readers of which the
Author did not suspect the existence. He must, however, regard it
as a great compliment that, in detailing incidents purely
imaginary, he has been so fortunate in approximating reality as to
remind his readers of actual occurrences. It is therefore with
pleasure he notices some pieces of local history and tradition
which have been supposed to coincide with the fictitious persons,
incidents, and scenery of Guy Mannering.

The prototype of Dirk Hatteraick is considered as having been a
Dutch skipper called Yawkins. This man was well known on the coast
of Galloway and Dumfriesshire, as sole proprietor and master of a
buckkar, or smuggling lugger, called the 'Black Prince.' Being
distinguished by his nautical skill and intrepidity, his vessel
was frequently freighted, and his own services employed, by
French, Dutch, Manx, and Scottish smuggling companies.

A person well known by the name of Buckkar-tea, from having been a
noted smuggler of that article, and also by that of Bogle Bush,
the place of his residence, assured my kind informant Mr. Train,
that he had frequently seen upwards of two hundred Lingtow men
assemble at one time, and go off into the interior of the country,
fully laden with contraband goods.

In those halcyon days of the free trade, the fixed price for
carrying a box of tea or bale of tobacco from the coast of
Galloway to Edinburgh was fifteen shillings, and a man with two
horses carried four such packages. The trade was entirely
destroyed by Mr. Pitt's celebrated commutation law, which, by
reducing the duties upon excisable articles, enabled the lawful
dealer to compete with the smuggler. The statute was called in
Galloway and Dumfries-shire, by those who had thriven upon the
contraband trade, 'the burning and starving act.'

Sure of such active assistance on shore, Yawkins demeaned himself
so boldly that his mere name was a terror to the officers of the
revenue. He availed himself of the fears which his presence
inspired on one particular night, when, happening to be ashore
with a considerable quantity of goods in his sole custody, a
strong party of excisemen came down on him. Far from shunning the
attack, Yawkins sprung forward, shouting, 'Come on, my lads;
Yawkins is before you.' The revenue officers were intimidated and
relinquished their prize, though defended only by the courage and
address of a single man. On his proper element Yawkins was equally
successful. On one occasion he was landing his cargo at the
Manxman's Lake near Kirkcudbright, when two revenue cutters (the
'Pigmy' and the 'Dwarf') hove in sight at once on different tacks,
the one coming round by the Isles of Fleet, the other between the
point of Rueberry and the Muckle Ron. The dauntless freetrader
instantly weighed anchor and bore down right between the luggers,
so close that he tossed his hat on the deck of the one and his wig
on that of the other, hoisted a cask to his maintop, to show his
occupation, and bore away under an extraordinary pressure of
canvass, without receiving injury. To account for these and other
hairbreadth escapes, popular superstition alleged that Yawkins
insured his celebrated buckkar by compounding with the devil for
one-tenth of his crew every voyage. How they arranged the
separation of the stock and tithes is left to our conjecture. The
buckkar was perhaps called the 'Black Prince' in honour of the
formidable insurer.

The 'Black Prince' used to discharge her cargo at Luce, Balcarry,
and elsewhere on the coast; but her owner's favourite landing-
places were at the entrance of the Dee and the Cree, near the old
Castle of Rueberry, about six miles below Kirkcudbright. There is
a cave of large dimensions in the vicinity of Rueberry, which,
from its being frequently used by Yawkins and his supposed
connexion with the smugglers on the shore, is now called Dirk
Hatteraick's Cave. Strangers who visit this place, the scenery of
which is highly romantic, are also shown, under the name of the
Gauger's Loup, a tremendous precipice, being the same, it is
asserted, from which Kennedy was precipitated.

Meg Merrilies is in Galloway considered as having had her origin
in the traditions concerning the celebrated Flora Marshal, one of
the royal consorts of Willie Marshal, more commonly called the
Caird of Barullion, King of the Gipsies of the Western Lowlands.
That potentate was himself deserving of notice from the following
peculiarities:--He was born in the parish of Kirkmichael about
the year 1671; and, as he died at Kirkcudbright 23d November 1792,
he must then have been in the one hundred and twentieth year of
his age. It cannot be said that this unusually long lease of
existence was noted by any peculiar excellence of conduct or
habits of life. Willie had been pressed or enlisted in the army
seven times, and had deserted as often; besides three times
running away from the naval service. He had been seventeen times
lawfully married; and, besides, such a reasonably large share of
matrimonial comforts, was, after his hundredth year, the avowed
father of four children by less legitimate affections. He
subsisted in his extreme old age by a pension from the present
Earl of Selkirk's grandfather. Will Marshal is buried in
Kirkcudbright church, where his monument is still shown, decorated
with a scutcheon suitably blazoned with two tups' horns and two
cutty spoons.

In his youth he occasionally took an evening walk on the highway,
with the purpose of assisting travellers by relieving them of the
weight of their purses. On one occasion the Caird of Barullion
robbed the Laird of Bargally at a place between Carsphairn and
Dalmellington. His purpose was not achieved without a severe
struggle, in which the gipsy lost his bonnet, and was obliged to
escape, leaving it on the road. A respectable farmer happened to
be the next passenger, and, seeing the bonnet, alighted, took it
up, and rather imprudently put it on his own head. At this instant
Bargally came up with some assistants, and, recognising the
bonnet, charged the farmer of Bantoberick with having robbed him,
and took him into custody. There being some likeness between the
parties, Bargally persisted in his charge, and, though the
respectability of the farmer's character was proved or admitted,
his trial before the Circuit Court came on accordingly. The fatal
bonnet lay on the table of the court. Bargally swore that it was
the identical article worn by the man who robbed him; and he and
others likewise deponed that they had found the accused on the
spot where the crime was committed, with the bonnet on his head.
The case looked gloomily for the prisoner, and the opinion of the
judge seemed unfavourable. But there was a person in court who
knew well both who did and who did not commit the crime. This was
the Caird of Barullion, who, thrusting himself up to the bar near
the place where Bargally was standing, suddenly seized on the
bonnet, put it on his head, and, looking the Laird full in the
face, asked him, with a voice which attracted the attention of the
court and crowded audience--'Look at me, sir, and tell me, by the
oath you have sworn--Am not _I_ the man who robbed you between
Carsphairn and Dalmellington?' Bargally replied, in great
astonishment, 'By Heaven! you are the very man.' 'You see what
sort of memory this gentleman has,' said the volunteer pleader;
'he swears to the bonnet whatever features are under it. If you
yourself, my Lord, will put it on your head, he will be willing to
swear that your Lordship was the party who robbed him between
Carsphairn and Dalmellington.' The tenant of Bantoberick was
unanimously acquitted; and thus Willie Marshal ingeniously
contrived to save an innocent man from danger, without incurring
any himself, since Bargally's evidence must have seemed to every
one too fluctuating to be relied upon.

While the King of the Gipsies was thus laudably occupied, his
royal consort, Flora, contrived, it is said, to steal the hood
from the judge's gown; for which offence, combined with her
presumptive guilt as a gipsy, she was banished to New England,
whence she never returned.

Now, I cannot grant that the idea of Meg Merrilies was, in the
first concoction of the character, derived from Flora Marshal,
seeing I have already said she was identified with Jean Gordon,
and as I have not the Laird of Bargally's apology for charging the
same fact on two several individuals. Yet I am quite content that
Meg should be considered as a representative of her sect and class
in general, Flora as well as others.

The other instances in which my Gallovidian readers have obliged
me by assigning to

     Airy nothing
     A local habitation and a name,

shall also be sanctioned so far as the Author may be entitled to
do so. I think the facetious Joe Miller records a case pretty much
in point; where the keeper of a museum, while showing, as he said,
the very sword with which Balaam was about to kill his ass, was
interrupted by one of the visitors, who reminded him that Balaam
was not possessed of a sword, but only wished for one. 'True,
sir,' replied the ready-witted cicerone; 'but this is the very
sword he wished for.' The Author, in application of this story,
has only to add that, though ignorant of the coincidence between
the fictions of the tale and some real circumstances, he is
contented to believe he must unconsciously have thought or dreamed
of the last while engaged in the composition of Guy Mannering.






GUY MANNERING

OR

THE ASTROLOGER




CHAPTER I

     He could not deny that, looking round upon the dreary region,
     and seeing nothing but bleak fields and naked trees, hills
     obscured by fogs, and flats covered with inundations, he did
     for some time suffer melancholy to prevail upon him, and
     wished himself again safe at home.

          --'Travels of Will. Marvel,' IDLER, No. 49.


It was in the beginning of the month of November 17--when a
young English gentleman, who had just left the university of
Oxford, made use of the liberty afforded him to visit some parts
of the north of England; and curiosity extended his tour into the
adjacent frontier of the sister country. He had visited, on the
day that opens our history, some monastic ruins in the county of
Dumfries, and spent much of the day in making drawings of them
from different points, so that, on mounting his horse to resume
his journey, the brief and gloomy twilight of the season had
already commenced. His way lay through a wide tract of black moss,
extending for miles on each side and before him. Little eminences
arose like islands on its surface, bearing here and there patches
of corn, which even at this season was green, and sometimes a hut
or farm-house, shaded by a willow or two and surrounded by large
elder-bushes. These insulated dwellings communicated with each
other by winding passages through the moss, impassable by any but
the natives themselves. The public road, however, was tolerably
well made and safe, so that the prospect of being benighted
brought with it no real danger. Still it is uncomfortable to
travel alone and in the dark through an unknown country; and there
are few ordinary occasions upon which Fancy frets herself so much
as in a situation like that of Mannering.

As the light grew faint and more faint, and the morass appeared
blacker and blacker, our traveller questioned more closely each
chance passenger on his distance from the village of
Kippletringan, where he proposed to quarter for the night. His
queries were usually answered by a counter-challenge respecting
the place from whence he came. While sufficient daylight remained
to show the dress and appearance of a gentleman, these cross
interrogatories were usually put in the form of a case supposed,
as, 'Ye'll hae been at the auld abbey o' Halycross, sir? there's
mony English gentlemen gang to see that.'--Or, 'Your honour will
be come frae the house o' Pouderloupat?' But when the voice of the
querist alone was distinguishable, the response usually was,
'Where are ye coming frae at sic a time o' night as the like o'
this?'--or, 'Ye'll no be o' this country, freend?' The answers,
when obtained, were neither very reconcilable to each other nor
accurate in the information which they afforded. Kippletringan was
distant at first 'a gey bit'; then the 'gey bit' was more
accurately described as 'ablins three mile'; then the 'three mile'
diminished into 'like a mile and a bittock'; then extended
themselves into 'four mile or thereawa'; and, lastly, a female
voice, having hushed a wailing infant which the spokeswoman
carried in her arms, assured Guy Mannering, 'It was a weary lang
gate yet to Kippletringan, and unco heavy road for foot
passengers.' The poor hack upon which Mannering was mounted was
probably of opinion that it suited him as ill as the female
respondent; for he began to flag very much, answered each
application of the spur with a groan, and stumbled at every stone
(and they were not few) which lay in his road.

Mannering now grew impatient. He was occasionally betrayed into a
deceitful hope that the end of his journey was near by the
apparition of a twinkling light or two; but, as he came up, he was
disappointed to find that the gleams proceeded from some of those
farm-houses which occasionally ornamented the surface of the
extensive bog. At length, to complete his perplexity, he arrived
at a place where the road divided into two. If there had been
light to consult the relics of a finger-post which stood there, it
would have been of little avail, as, according to the good custom
of North Britain, the inscription had been defaced shortly after
its erection. Our adventurer was therefore compelled, like a
knight-errant of old, to trust to the sagacity of his horse,
which, without any demur, chose the left-hand path, and seemed to
proceed at a somewhat livelier pace than before, affording thereby
a hope that he knew he was drawing near to his quarters for the
evening. This hope, however, was not speedily accomplished, and
Mannering, whose impatience made every furlong seem three, began
to think that Kippletringan was actually retreating before him in
proportion to his advance.