Guy Mannering

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Guy Mannering

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40

Guy Mannering

by Sir Walter Scott

INTRODUCTION TO GUY MANNERING.

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. she 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 he 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 further
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 overcloud 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 be 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 bad 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, upon 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 falterer 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 an 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 insure 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 further 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
wets 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 encumbrance. The cause of
such vestiges 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 ox 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 farm-house of Lochside, near
Yetholm, she had carefully abstained from committing any
depredations an 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.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40