GUY MANNERING

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT





GUY MANNERING

OR

THE ASTROLOGER





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


VOLUME I.
THE DEPARTURE OF THE GYPSIES----Drawn by Clark Stanton, Etched by C. de
Billy

ELLANGOWAN CASTLE----Drawn by John MacWhirter, Etched by Alex. Ansted

CARLAVEROCK CASTLE----Photo-Etching by John Andrew and Son

"PRODIGIOUS!"---Original Etching by George Cruikshank

THE CURE OF MEG MERRILIES----Drawn and Etched by C. O. Murray

DOMINIE SAMPSON IN THE LIBRARY----Drawn and Etched by C. O. Murray

DANDIE DINMONT AT HOME----Drawn by Steel Gourlay, Etched by H. Macbeth
Raeburn




VOLUME II.
THE PARTY AT COLONEL MANNERING'S---Drawn by Herdman, Etched by H. Manesse

THE ATTACK OF THE SMUGGLERS---Drawn and Etched by H. Moyer Smith

PLEYDELL AS KING----Original Etching by R. W. Macbeth

ON THE SOLWAY FRITH----Original Etching by F. S. Walker

"GAPE, SINNER, AND SWALLOW!"---Original Etching by George Cruikshank

MEG MERRILIES DIRECTS BERTRAM TO THE CAVE----Etched by C. O. Murray

THE CAPTURE OF DIRK HATTERAICK---Drawn by MacDonald, Etched by Courtry





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.

ABBOTSFORD, January, 1829.




ADDENDUM: 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.






EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

TO

GUY MANNERING.


The second essay in fiction of an author who has triumphed in his first
romance is a doubtful and perilous adventure. The writer is apt to become
self-conscious, to remember the advice of his critics,--a fatal
error,--and to tremble before the shadow of his own success. He knows
that he will have many enemies, that hundreds of people will be ready to
find fault and to vow that he is "written out." Scott was not
unacquainted with these apprehensions. After publishing "Marmion" he
wrote thus to Lady Abercorn:--

"No one acquires a certain degree of popularity without exciting an equal
degree of malevolence among those who, either from rivalship or from the
mere wish to pull down what others have set up, are always ready to catch
the first occasion to lower the favoured individual to what they call his
'real standard.' Of this I have enough of experience, and my political
interferences, however useless to my friends, have not failed to make me
more than the usual number of enemies. I am therefore bound, in justice
to myself and to those whose good opinion has hitherto protected me, not
to peril myself too frequently. The naturalists tell us that if you
destroy the web which the spider has just made, the insect must spend
many days in inactivity till he has assembled within his person the
materials necessary to weave another. Now, after writing a work of
imagination one feels in nearly the same exhausted state as the spider. I
believe no man now alive writes more rapidly than I do (no great
recommendation); but I never think of making verses till I have a
sufficient stock of poetical ideas to supply them,--I would as soon join
the Israelites in Egypt in their heavy task of making bricks without
clay. Besides, I know, as a small farmer, that good husbandry consists in
not taking the same crop too frequently from the same soil; and as
turnips come after wheat, according to the best rules of agriculture, I
take it that an edition of Swift will do well after such a scourging crop
as 'Marmiou.'"

[March 13, 1808. Copied from the Collection of Lady Napier and Ettrick.]

These fears of the brave, then, were not unfamiliar to Scott; but he
audaciously disregarded all of them in the composition of "Guy
Mannering." He had just spun his web, like the spider of his simile, he
had just taken off his intellectual fields the "scourging crop" of "The
Lord of the Isles," he had just received the discouraging news of its
comparative failure, when he "buckled to," achieved "Guy Mannering" in
six weeks, and published it. Moliere tells us that he wrote "Les Facheux"
in a fortnight; and a French critic adds that it reads indeed as if it
had been written in, a fortnight. Perhaps a self-confident censor might
venture a similar opinion about "Guy Mannering." It assuredly shows
traces of haste; the plot wanders at its own will; and we may believe
that the Author often--did not see his own way out of the wood. But there
is little harm in that. "If I do not know what is coming next," a modern
novelist has remarked, "how can the public know?" Curiosity, at least, is
likely to be excited by this happy-go-lucky manner of Scott's. "The worst
of it is;" as he wrote to Lady Abercorn about his poems (June 9,1808),
"that I am not very good or patient in slow and careful composition; and
sometimes I remind myself of the drunken man, who could run long after he
could not walk." Scott could certainly run very well, though averse to a
plodding motion.