Guy Mannering, Vol. I

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'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.

It was now very cloudy, although the stars from time to time shed
a twinkling and uncertain light. Hitherto nothing had broken the
silence around him but the deep cry of the bog-blitter, or bull-
of-the-bog, a large species of bittern, and the sighs of the wind
as it passed along the dreary morass. To these was now joined the
distant roar of the ocean, towards which the traveller seemed to
be fast approaching. This was no circumstance to make his mind
easy. Many of the roads in that country lay along the sea-beach,
and were liable to be flooded by the tides, which rise with great
height, and advance with extreme rapidity. Others were intersected
with creeks and small inlets, which it was only safe to pass at
particular times of the tide. Neither circumstance would have
suited a dark night, a fatigued horse, and a traveller ignorant of
his road. Mannering resolved, therefore, definitively to halt for
the night at the first inhabited place, however poor, he might
chance to reach, unless he could procure a guide to this unlucky
village of Kippletringan.

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