OR,

THE ASTROLOGER.

CHAPTER I.

sionally betrayed into a deceitful hope that the end fle could not deny, that looking round upon the dreary region, of his journey was near, by the apparition of a twinkand seeing nothing but bleak fields, and naked trees, hills obling light or two; but, as he came up, he was disapscured by fogs, and flats covered with inundations, he did for pointed to find that the gleams proceeded from some some time suffer melancholy to prevail upon him, and wished of those farm-houses which occasionally ornamented himself again safe at home. Travels of Will. Marvel, Idler, No. 49. the surface of the extensive bog. At length, to complete his perplexity, he arrived at a place where the It was in the beginning of the month of November, road divided into two. If there had been light to 17, when a young English gentleman, who had just consult the relics of a finger-post which stood there, left the university of Oxford, made use of the liberty it would have been of little avail, as, according to the afforded him, to visit some parts of the north of Eng-good custom of North Britain, the inscription had land; and curiosity extended his tour into the adja- been defaced shortly after its erection. Our adventu cent frontier of the sister country. He had visited,rer was therefore, compelled, like a knight-errant of on the day that opens our history, some monastic old, to trust to the sagacity of his horse, which, withruins in the county of Dumfries, and spent much of out any demur, chose the left-hand path, and seemthe day in making drawings of them from different ed to proceed at a somewhat livelier pace than bepoints; so that on mounting his horse to resume his fore, affording thereby a hope that he knew he was journey, the brief and gloomy twilight of the season drawing near to his quarters for the evening. This had already commenced. His way lay through a wide hope, however, was not speedily accomplished, and tract of black moss, extending for miles on each side Mannering, whose impatience made every furlong and before him. Little eminences arose like islands seem three, began to think that Kippletringan was on its surface, bearing here and there patches of corn, actually retreating before him in proportion to his adwhich 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.

was,

86

vance.

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.

A miserable hut gave him an opportunity to execute his purpose. He found out the door with no small difficulty, and for some time knocked without producing any other answer than a duet between a female and a cur-dog, the latter yelping as if he would have barked his heart out, the other screaming in chorus. By degrees the human tones predominated; but the angry bark of the cur being at the instant changed into a howl, it is probable something more than fair strength of lungs had contributed to the ascendancy,

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 day-light remained to show the dress and appearance of a gentleman, these cross interrogatories were usually put in the form of a case supposed, as, "Yell 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 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 reconcileable 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 Am I far from Kippletringan, good dame?" mile or thereaza" and, lastly, a female voice, ha- Frae Kippletringan!!!" in an exalted tone of ving hashed a wailing infant which the spokeswo-wonder, which we can but faintly express by threa man carried in her arms, assured Guy Mannering, points of admiration; "Ow, man! ye should nao "It was a weary lang gate yet to Kippletringan, and hadden eassel to Kippletringan-ye maun gae back nco heavy road for foot passengers." The poor as far as the Whaap, and haud the Whaap* till ye hack upon which Mannering was mounted, was pro- come to Ballenloan, and then"bably of opinion that it suited him as ill as the female respondent; for he began to flag very much, answered rach application of the spur with a groan, and stum-lodgings?" bled at every stone (and they were not few) which lay in his road.

Mannering now grew impatient. He was occa

Sorrow be in your thrapple then!" these were the first articulate words, "will ye no let me hear what the man wants, wi' your yaffing?"

"This will never do, good dame! my horse is almost quite knocked up-can you not give me a night's

The Hope, often pronounced Whaap, is the sheltered part or hollow of the hill. Hof, how, hauf, and haven, are all modifications of the same word.

"Troth can I no-I am a lone woman, for James he's awa to Drumshourloch fair with the year-aulds, and I daurna for my life open the door to ony o' your gang-there-out sort o' bodies."

"But what must I do then, good dame? for I can't sleep here upon the road all night."

"Troth, I kenna, unless ye like to gae down and speer for quarters at the Place. I'se warrant they'll tak ye in, whether ye be gentle or semple."

Simple enough, to be wandering here at such a time of night," thought Mannering, who was ignorant of the meaning of the phrase; "but how shall I get to the place, as you call it ?"

Ye maun haud vessel by the end o' the loan, and take tent o' the jaw-hole."

"O, if ye get to cassel and wessel again, I am un done! Is there nobody that could guide me to this place? I will pay him handsomely."

CHAPTER II.

-Comes me cranking in,

And cuts me from the best of all my land,
A huge half moon, a monstrous cantle out
Henry Fourth, Part L

THE Company in the parlour at Ellangowan consisted of the Laird, and a sort of person who might be the village schoolmaster, or perhaps the minis ter's assistant; his appearance was too shabby to indicate the minister, considering he was on a visit to the Laird,

The Laird himself was one of those second-rate sort of persons, that are to be found frequently in rural situations. Fielding has described one class as feras consumere nati; but the love of field sports indicates a certain activity of mind, which had forsaken Mr. Bertram, if ever he possessed it. A goodhumoured listlessness of countenance formed the The word pay operated like magic. "Jock, ye vil- only remarkable expression of his features, although lain," exclaimed a voice from the interior, are ye they were rather handsome than otherwise. In fact, lying routing there, and a young gentleman seeking his physiognomy indicated the inanity of character the way to the Place? Get up, ye fause loon, and which pervaded his life. I will give the reader some show him the way down the muckle loaning.-He'll insight into his state and conversation, before he has show you the way, sir, and I'se warrant ye'll be weel finished a long lecture to Mannering, upon the proput up; for they never turn awa naebody frae the door; priety and comfort of wrapping his stirrup-irons and ye'll be come in the canny moment, I'm think-round with a whisp of straw when he had occasion ing, for the laird's servant-that's no to say his bodyservant, but the helper like-rade express by this e'en to fetch the houdie, and he just staid the drinking o' twa pints o' tippenny, to tell us how my leddy was ta'en wi' her pains."

"Perhaps," said Mannering, "at such a time a stranger's arrival might be inconvenient?"

"Hout, na, ye needna be blate about that; their house is muckle eneugh, and cleckingt time's aye canty time."

By this time Jock had found his way into all the intricacies of a tattered doublet, and a more tattered pair of breeches, and sallied forth, a great whiteheaded, bare-legged, lubberly boy of twelve years old, so exhibited by the glimpse of a rush-light, which his half-naked mother held in such a manner as to get a peep at the stranger, without greatly exposing herself to view in return. Jock moved on westward, by the end of the house, leading Mannering's horse by the bridle, and piloting, with some dexterity, along the little path which bordered the formidable jaw-hole, whose vicinity the stranger was made sensible of by means of more organs than one. His guide then dragged the weary hack along a broken and stony cart-track, next over a ploughed field, then broke down a slap, as he called it, in a dry-stone fence, and lugged the unresisting animal through the breach, about a rood of the simple masonry giving way in the splutter with which he passed. Finally, he led the way, through a wicket, into something which had still the air of an avenue, though many of the trees were felled. The roar of the ocean was now near and full, and the moon, which began to make her appearance, gleamed on a turreted and apparently a ruined mansion, of considerable extent. Mannering fixed his eyes upon it with a disconsolate sensation.

"Why, my little fellow," he said, "this is a ruin, not a house?"

Ah, but the lairds lived there langsyne-that's Ellangowan Auld Place; there's a hantie bogles about it but ye needna be feared-I never saw ony mysell, and we're just at the door o' the New Place.'

to ride in a chill evening.

Godfrey Bertram, of Ellangowan, succeeded to a long pedigree and a short rent-roll, like many lairds of that period. His list of forefathers ascended so high, that they were lost in the barbarous ages of Galwegian independence; so that his genealogical tree, besides the Christian and crusading names of Godfreys, and Gilberts, and Dennises, and Rolands, without end, bore heathen fruit of yet darker ages, -Arths, and Knarths, and Donagilds, and Hanlons. In truth, they had been formerly the stormy chiefs of a desert, but extensive domain, and the heads of a numerous tribe, called Mac-Dinga waie, though they afterwards adopted the Norman surname of Bertram. They had made war, raised rebellions, been defeated, beheaded, and hanged, as became a family of importance, for many centuries. But they had gradually lost ground in the world, and from being themselves the heads of treason and traitorous conspiracies, the Bertrams, or Mac-Dingawates, of Ellango wan, had sunk into subordinate accomplices. Their most fatal exhibitions in this capacity took place in the seventeenth century, when the foul fiend possessed them with a spirit of contradiction, which uniformly involved them in controversy with the ruling powers. They reversed the conduct of the celebrated Vicar of Bray, and adhered as tenaciously to the weaker side, as that worthy divine to the stronger. And truly, like him, they had their reward.

Allan Bertram of Ellangowan, who flourished temporc Caroli primi, was, says my authority, Sir Robert Douglas, in his Scottish Baronage, (see the title Ellangowan,) a steady loyalist, and full of zeal for the cause of his sacred majesty, in which he united with the great Marquis of Montrose, and other truly zealous and honourable patriots, and sustained great losses in that behalf. He had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him by his most sacred majesty, and was sequestrated as a malignant by the parliament, 1642, and afterwards as a resolutioner, in the year 1648."-These two cross-grained epithets of malignant and resolutioner, cost poor Sir Allan one half of the family estate. His son Dennis Bertran married a daughter of an eminent fanatic, who had Accordingly, leaving the ruins on the right, a few a seat in the council of state, and saved by that steps brought the traveller in front of a modern house union the remainder of the family property. But, as of moderate size, at which his guide rapped with great ill chance would have it, he became enamoured of the importance. Mannering told his circumstances to lady's principles as well as of her charms, and my the servant; and the gentleman of the house, who author gives him this character: " He was a man of heard his tale from the parlour, stepped forward, and eminent parts and resolution, for which reason he welcomed the stranger hospitably to Ellangowan. was chosen by the western counties one of the comThe boy, made happy with half-a-crown, was dismis-mittee of noblemen and gentlemen, to report their Led to his cottage, the weary horse was conducted to a stall, and Mannering found himself in a few minutes seated by a comfortable supper, for which his cold ride gave him a hearty appetite.

* Provincial for eastward and westward.
Hatching time.

griefs to the privy council of Charles II. anent the coming in of the Highland host in 1678.". For undertaking this patriotic task he underwent a fine, to pay which he was obliged to mortgage half of the remaining moiety of his paternal property. This loss he might have recovered by dint of severe economy

but on the breaking out of Argyle's rebellion, Dennis | into large, interests were accumulated upon capitals, Bertram was again suspected by government, appre- moveable bonds became heritable, and law charges hended, sent to Dunnotar Castle on the coast of the were heaped upon all; though Ellangowan possessed Mearns, and there broke his neck in an attempt to so little the spirit of a litigant, that he was on two escape from a subterranean habitation, called the occasions charged to make payment of the expenses Whigs' Vault, in which he was confined with some of a long lawsuit, although he had never before heard eighty of the same persuasion. The apprizer, there- that he had such cases in court. Meanwhile his fore, (as the holder of a mortgage was then called,) neighbours predicted his final ruin. Those of the entered pon possession, and, in the language of higher rank, with some malignity, accounted him alHotspur, came me cranking in," and cut the fa-ready a degraded brother. The lower classes, seemily out of another monstrous cantle of their re- ing nothing enviable in his situation, marked his emmaining property. barrassments with more compassion. He was even Donohoe Bertram, with somewhat of an Irish name, a kind of favourite with them, and upon the division and somewhat of an Irish temper, succeeded to the of a common, or the holding of a black-fishing, or diminished property of Ellangowan. He turned out poaching court, or any similar occasion, when they of doors the Rev. Aaron Macbriar, his mother's chap- conceived themselves oppressed by the gentry, they lain, (it is said they quarrelled about the good graces were in the habit of saying to each other, "Ah, if Elof a milk-maid,) drank himself daily drunk with brim-langowan, honest man, had his ain that his forpears ming healths to the king, council, and bishops; held had afore him, he wadna see the puir folk trodden orgies with the Laird of Lagg, Theophilus Oglethorpe, down this gait." Meanwhile this general good opinion and Sir James. Turner; and lastly, took his gray never prevented their taking the advantage of him on gelding, and joined Clavers at Killiecrankie. At the all possible occasions, turning their cattle into his skirmish of Dunkeld, 1689, he was shot dead by a Ca- parks, stealing his wood, shooting his game, and so meronian with a silver button, (being supposed to have forth, "for the laird, honest man, he'll never find it, proof from the Evil One against lead and steel,) and he never minds what a puir body does."-Pedlars his grave is still called, the "Wicked Laird's Lair." gypsies, tinkers, vagrants of all descriptions, roosted His son, Lewis, had more prudence than seems about his outhouses, or harboured in his kitchens usually to have belonged to the family. He nursed and the laird, who was "nae nice body," but a tho what property was yet left to him; for Donohoe's rough gossip, like most weak men, found recompense excesses, as well as fines and forfeitures, had made for his hospitality in the pleasure of questioning them another inroad upon the estate. And although even on the news of the country side. he did not escape the fatality which induced the Lairds of Ellangowan to interfere with politics, he had yet the prudence, ere he went out with Lord Kenmore, in 1715, to convey his estate to trustees, in order to parry pains and penalties, in case the Earl of Mar could not put down the Protestant succession. But Scylla and Charybdis-a word to the wise-he only saved his estate at expense of a lawsuit, which again subdivided the family property, He was, however, a man of resolution. He sold part of the lands, evacuated the old castle, where the family lived in their decadence, as a mouse (said an old farmer) lives under a firlot. Pulling down part of these venerable ruins, he built with the stones a narrow house of three stories high, with a front like a grenadier's cap, having in the very centre a round window, like the single eye of a Cyclops, two windows on each side, and a door in the middle, leading to a parlour and withdrawing room, fu of all manner of cross lights.

A circumstance arrested Ellangowan's progress on the high road to ruin. This was his marriage with a lady who had a portion of about four thousand pounds. Nobody in the neighbourhood could conceive why she married him, and endowed him with her wealth, unless because he had a tall, handsome figure, a good set of features, a genteel address, and the most perfect good-humour. It might be some additional consideration, that she was herself at the re flecting age of twenty-eight, and had no near rela tions to control her actions ar choice.

It was in this lady's behalf (confined for the first time after her marriage) that the speedy and active express, mentioned by the old dame of the cottage had been dispatched to Kippletringan on the night of Mannering's arrival.

Though we have said so much of the Laird him> self, it still remains that we make the reader in some degree acquainted with his companion. This was Abel Sampson, commonly called, from his occupa This was the New Place of Ellangowan, in which tion as a pedagogue, Dominie. Sampson. He was of we left our hero, better amused perhaps than our read- low birth, but having evinced, even from his cradle, ers, and to this Lewis Bertram retreated, full of pro- an uncommon seriousness of disposition, the poor jects for re-establishing the prosperity of his family. parents were encouraged to hope that their bairn, as He took some land into his own hand, rented some they expressed it, "might wag his pow in a pulpit from neighbouring proprietors; bought and sold yet." With an ambitious view to such a consumHighland cattle and Cheviot sheep, rode to fairs and mation, they pinched and pared, rose early and lay trysts, fought hard bargains, and held necessity at the down late, ate dry bread and drank cold water, to se staff's end as well as he might. But what he gained cure to Abel the means of learning. Meantime, his in purse, he lost in honour, for such agricultural and tall ungainly figure, his taciturn and grave manners, commercial negociations were very ill looked upon and some grotesque habits of swinging his limbs, by his brother lairds, who minded nothing but cock- and screwing his visage, while reciting his task fighting, hunting, coursing, and horse-racing, with inade poor Sampson, the ridicule of all his school now and then the alternation of a desperate duel. companions. The same qualities secured him at The occupations which he followed encroached, in Glasgow college a plentiful share of the same sort of their opinion, upon the article of Ellangowan's gentry, notice. Half the youthful mob "of the yards" used and he found it necessary gradually to estrange him to assemble regularly to see Dominie Sampson (for self from their society, and sink into what was then a he had already attained that honourable title) descend very ambiguous character, a gentleman farmer. In the the stairs from the Greek class, with his Lexicon un midst of his schemes death claimed his tribute, and der his arm, his long mis-shapen legs sprawling the scanty remains of a large property descended upon abroad, and keeping awkward time to the play of his Godfrey, Bertram, the present possessor, his only son. immense shoulder-blades, as they raised and depress▷ The danger of the father's speculations was soon ed the loose and thread-bare black coat which was seen Deprived of Laird Lewis's personal and ac- his constant and only wear. When he spoke, the eftive superintendence, all his undertakings miscarried, forts of the professor (professor of divinity though he and became either abortive or perilous. Without a was) were totally madequate to restrain the inextinsingle spark of energy to meet or repel these misfor-guishable laughter of the students, and sometimes funes, Godfrey put his faith in the activity of ano- even to repress his own. The long, sallow visage, her. He kept neither hunters, nor hounds, nor any the goggle eyes, the huge under jaw, which appeared other southern preliminaries to ruin; but as has been not to open and shut by an act of volition, but to be observed of his countrymen, he kept a man of busi- dropped and hoisted up again by some complicated ness, who answered the purpose equally well. Un-machinery, within the inner man,-the harsh and der this gentleman's supervision small debts grew dissonant voice, and the screech-owl notes to which VOL. II.-T