Do not the hist'ries of all ages
Relate miraculous presages
Of strange turns m the world's affairs,
Foreseen by astrologers, soothsayers,
Chaldeans, learned genethliacs,
And some that have writ almanacks?
Hudibras.
The circumstances of the landlady were pleaded to Mannering, first, as
an apology for her not appearing to welcome her guest, and for those
deficiencies in his entertainment which her attention might have
supplied, and then as an excuse for pressing an extra bottle of good
wine. 'I cannot weel sleep,' said the Laird, with the anxious feelings
of a father in such a predicament, 'till I hear she's gotten ower with
it; and if you, sir, are not very sleepery, and would do me and the
Dominie the honour to sit up wi' us, I am sure we shall not detain you
very late. Luckie Howatson is very expeditious. There was ance a lass
that was in that way; she did not live far from hereabouts--ye needna
shake your head and groan, Dominie; I am sure the kirk dues were a'
weel paid, and what can man do mair?--it was laid till her ere she had
a sark ower her head; and the man that she since wadded does not think
her a pin the waur for the misfortune. They live, Mr. Mannering, by the
shoreside at Annan, and a mair decent, orderly couple, with six as fine
bairns as ye would wish to see plash in a saltwater dub; and little
curlie Godfrey--that's the eldest, the come o' will, as I may say--he's
on board an excise yacht. I hae a cousin at the board of excise; that's
Commissioner Bertram; he got his commissionership in the great contest
for the county, that ye must have heard of, for it was appealed to the
House of Commons. Now I should have voted there for the Laird of
Balruddery; but ye see my father was a Jacobite, and out with Kenmore,
so he never took the oaths; and I ken not weel how it was, but all that
I could do and say, they keepit me off the roll, though my agent, that
had a vote upon my estate, ranked as a good vote for auld Sir Thomas
Kittlecourt. But, to return to what I was saying, Luckie Howatson is
very expeditious, for this lass--'
Here the desultory and long-winded narrative of the Laird was
interrupted by the voice of some one ascending the stairs from the
kitchen story, and singing at full pitch of voice. The high notes were
too shrill for a man, the low seemed too deep for a woman. The words,
as far as Mannering could distinguish them, seemed to run thus:--
Canny moment, lucky fit!
Is the lady lighter yet?
Be it lad, or be it lass,
Sign wi' cross and sain wi' mass.
'It's Meg Merrilies, the gipsy, as sure as I am a sinner,' said Mr.
Bertram. The Dominie groaned deeply, uncrossed his legs, drew in the
huge splay foot which his former posture had extended, placed it
perpendicularly, and stretched the other limb over it instead, puffing
out between whiles huge volumes of tobacco smoke. 'What needs ye groan,
Dominie? I am sure Meg's sangs do nae ill.'
'Nor good neither,' answered Dominie Sampson, in a voice whose
untuneable harshness corresponded with the awkwardness of his figure.
They were the first words which Mannering had heard him speak; and as
he had been watching with some curiosity when this eating, drinking,
moving, and smoking automaton would perform the part of speaking, he
was a good deal diverted with the harsh timber tones which issued from
him. But at this moment the door opened, and Meg Merrilies entered.
Her appearance made Mannering start. She was full six feet high, wore a
man's great-coat over the rest of her dress, had in her hand a goodly
sloethorn cudgel, and in all points of equipment, except her
petticoats, seemed rather masculine than feminine. Her dark elf-locks
shot out like the snakes of the gorgon between an old-fashioned bonnet
called a bongrace, heightening the singular effect of her strong and
weather-beaten features, which they partly shadowed, while her eye had
a wild roll that indicated something like real or affected insanity.
'Aweel, Ellangowan,' she said, 'wad it no hae been a bonnie thing, an
the leddy had been brought to bed, and me at the fair o' Drumshourloch,
no kenning, nor dreaming a word about it? Wha was to hae keepit awa the
worriecows, I trow? Ay, and the elves and gyre-carlings frae the bonnie
bairn, grace be wi' it? Ay, or said Saint Colme's charm for its sake,
the dear?' And without waiting an answer she began to sing--
Trefoil, vervain, John's-wort, dill,
Hinders witches of their
will, Weel is them, that weel may
Fast upon Saint Andrew's day.
Saint Bride and her brat,
Saint Colme and his cat,
Saint Michael and his spear,
Keep the house frae reif and wear.
This charm she sung to a wild tune, in a high and shrill voice, and,
cutting three capers with such strength and agility as almost to touch
the roof of the room, concluded, 'And now, Laird, will ye no order me a
tass o' brandy?'
'That you shall have, Meg. Sit down yont there at the door and tell us
what news ye have heard at the fair o' Drumshourloch.'
'Troth, Laird, and there was muckle want o' you, and the like o' you;
for there was a whin bonnie lasses there, forbye mysell, and deil ane
to gie them hansels.'
'Weel, Meg, and how mony gipsies were sent to the tolbooth?'
'Troth, but three, Laird, for there were nae mair in the fair, bye
mysell, as I said before, and I e'en gae them leg-bail, for there's nae
ease in dealing wi' quarrelsome fowk. And there's Dunbog has warned the
Red Rotten and John Young aff his grunds--black be his cast! he's nae
gentleman, nor drap's bluid o' gentleman, wad grudge twa gangrel puir
bodies the shelter o' a waste house, and the thristles by the roadside
for a bit cuddy, and the bits o' rotten birk to boil their drap
parritch wi'. Weel, there's Ane abune a'; but we'll see if the red cock
craw not in his bonnie barn-yard ae morning before day-dawing.'
'Hush! Meg, hush! hush! that's not safe talk.'
'What does she mean?' said Mannering to Sampson, in an undertone.
'Fire-raising,' answered the laconic Dominie.
'Who, or what is she, in the name of wonder?'
'Harlot, thief, witch, and gipsy,' answered Sampson again.
'O troth, Laird,' continued Meg, during this by-talk, 'it's but to the
like o' you ane can open their heart; ye see, they say Dunbog is nae
mair a gentleman than the blunker that's biggit the bonnie house down
in the howm. But the like o' you, Laird, that's a real gentleman for
sae mony hundred years, and never hunds puir fowk aff your grund as if
they were mad tykes, nane o' our fowk wad stir your gear if ye had as
mony capons as there's leaves on the trysting-tree. And now some o' ye
maun lay down your watch, and tell me the very minute o' the hour the
wean's born, an I'll spae its fortune.'
'Ay, but, Meg, we shall not want your assistance, for here's a student
from Oxford that kens much better than you how to spae its fortune; he
does it by the stars.'
'Certainly, sir,' said Mannering, entering into the simple humour of
his landlord, 'I will calculate his nativity according to the rule of
the "triplicities," as recommended by Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Diocles,
and Avicenna. Or I will begin ab hora questionis, as Haly, Messahala,
Ganwehis, and Guido Bonatus have recommended.'
One of Sampson's great recommendations to the favour of Mr. Bertram
was, that he never detected the most gross attempt at imposition, so
that the Laird, whose humble efforts at jocularity were chiefly
confined to what were then called bites and bams, since denominated
hoaxes and quizzes, had the fairest possible subject of wit in the
unsuspecting Dominie. It is true, he never laughed, or joined in the
laugh which his own simplicity afforded--nay, it is said, he never
laughed but once in his life, and on that memorable occasion his
landlady miscarried, partly through surprise at the event itself, and
partly from terror at the hideous grimaces which attended this unusual
cachinnation. The only effect which the discovery of such impositions
produced upon this saturnine personage was, to extort an ejaculation of
'Prodigious!' or 'Very facetious!' pronounced syllabically, but without
moving a muscle of his own countenance.
On the present occasion, he turned a gaunt and ghastly stare upon the
youthful astrologer, and seemed to doubt if he had rightly understood
his answer to his patron.
'I am afraid, sir,' said Mannering, turning towards him, 'you may be
one of those unhappy persons who, their dim eyes being unable to
penetrate the starry spheres, and to discern therein the decrees of
heaven at a distance, have their hearts barred against conviction by
prejudice and misprision.'
'Truly,' said Sampson, 'I opine with Sir Isaac Newton, Knight, and
umwhile master of his Majesty's mint, that the (pretended) science of
astrology is altogether vain, frivolous, and unsatisfactory.' And here
he reposed his oracular jaws.
'Really,' resumed the traveller, 'I am sorry to see a gentleman of your
learning and gravity labouring under such strange blindness and
delusion. Will you place the brief, the modern, and, as I may say, the
vernacular name of Isaac Newton in opposition to the grave and sonorous
authorities of Dariot, Bonatus, Ptolemy, Haly, Eztler, Dieterick,
Naibob, Harfurt, Zael, Taustettor, Agrippa, Duretus, Maginus, Origen,
and Argol? Do not Christians and Heathens, and Jews and Gentiles, and
poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry influences?'
'Communis error--it is a general mistake,' answered the inflexible
Dominie Sampson.
'Not so,' replied the young Englishman; 'it is a general and
well-grounded belief.'
'It is the resource of cheaters, knaves, and cozeners,' said Sampson.
'Abusus non tollit usum.--The abuse of anything doth not abrogate the
lawful use thereof.'
During this discussion Ellangowan was somewhat like a woodcock caught
in his own springe. He turned his face alternately from the one
spokesman to the other, and began, from the gravity with which
Mannering plied his adversary, and the learning which he displayed in
the controversy, to give him credit for being half serious. As for Meg,
she fixed her bewildered eyes upon the astrologer, overpowered by a
jargon more mysterious than her own.
Mannering pressed his advantage, and ran over all the hard terms of art
which a tenacious memory supplied, and which, from circumstances
hereafter to be noticed, had been familiar to him in early youth.
Signs and planets, in aspects sextile, quartile, trine, conjoined, or
opposite; houses of heaven, with their cusps, hours, and minutes;
almuten, almochoden, anabibazon, catabibazon; a thousand terms of equal
sound and significance, poured thick and threefold upon the unshrinking
Dominie, whose stubborn incredulity bore him out against the pelting of
this pitiless storm.
At length the joyful annunciation that the lady had presented her
husband with a fine boy, and was (of course) as well as could be
expected, broke off this intercourse. Mr. Bertram hastened to the
lady's apartment, Meg Merrilies descended to the kitchen to secure her
share of the groaning malt and the 'ken-no,' [Footnote: See Note i.]
and Mannering, after looking at his watch, and noting with great
exactness the hour and minute of the birth, requested, with becoming
gravity, that the Dominie would conduct him to some place where he
might have a view of the heavenly bodies.
The schoolmaster, without further answer, rose and threw open a door
half sashed with glass, which led to an old-fashioned terrace-walk
behind the modern house, communicating with the platform on which the
ruins of the ancient castle were situated. The wind had arisen, and
swept before it the clouds which had formerly obscured the sky. The
moon was high, and at the full, and all the lesser satellites of heaven
shone forth in cloudless effulgence. The scene which their light
presented to Mannering was in the highest degree unexpected and
striking.
We have observed, that in the latter part of his journey our traveller
approached the sea-shore, without being aware how nearly. He now
perceived that the ruins of Ellangowan Castle were situated upon a
promontory, or projection of rock, which formed one side of a small and
placid bay on the sea-shore. The modern mansion was placed lower,
though closely adjoining, and the ground behind it descended to the sea
by a small swelling green bank, divided into levels by natural
terraces, on which grew some old trees, and terminating upon the white
sand. The other side of the bay, opposite to the old castle, was a
sloping and varied promontory, covered chiefly with copsewood, which on
that favoured coast grows almost within water-mark. A fisherman's
cottage peeped from among the trees. Even at this dead hour of night
there were lights moving upon the shore, probably occasioned by the
unloading a smuggling lugger from the Isle of Man which was lying in
the bay. On the light from the sashed door of the house being observed,
a halloo from the vessel of 'Ware hawk! Douse the glim!' alarmed those
who were on shore, and the lights instantly disappeared.
It was one hour after midnight, and the prospect around was lovely. The
grey old towers of the ruin, partly entire, partly broken, here bearing
the rusty weather-stains of ages, and there partially mantled with ivy,
stretched along the verge of the dark rock which rose on Mannering's
right hand. In his front was the quiet bay, whose little waves,
crisping and sparkling to the moonbeams, rolled successively along its
surface, and dashed with a soft and murmuring ripple against the
silvery beach. To the left the woods advanced far into the ocean,
waving in the moonlight along ground of an undulating and varied form,
and presenting those varieties of light and shade, and that interesting
combination of glade and thicket, upon which the eye delights to rest,
charmed with what it sees, yet curious to pierce still deeper into the
intricacies of the woodland scenery. Above rolled the planets, each, by
its own liquid orbit of light, distinguished from the inferior or more
distant stars. So strangely can imagination deceive even those by whose
volition it has been excited, that Mannering, while gazing upon these
brilliant bodies, was half inclined to believe in the influence
ascribed to them by superstition over human events. But Mannering was a
youthful lover, and might perhaps be influenced by the feelings so
exquisitely expressed by a modern poet:--
For fable is Love's world, his home, his birthplace:
Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays, and talismans,
And spirits, and delightedly believes
Divinities, being himself divine
The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power,the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and wat'ry depths--all these have vanish'd;
They live no longer in the faith of reason!
But still the heart doth need a language, still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.
And to yon starry world they now are gone,
Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth
With man as with their friend, and to the lover
Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky
Shoot influence down; and even at this day
'T is Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,
And Venus who brings everything that's fair.
Such musings soon gave way to others. 'Alas!' he muttered, 'my good old
tutor, who used to enter so deep into the controversy between Heydon
and Chambers on the subject of astrology, he would have looked upon the
scene with other eyes, and would have seriously endeavoured to discover
from the respective positions of these luminaries their probable
effects on the destiny of the new-born infant, as if the courses or
emanations of the stars superseded, or at least were co-ordinate with,
Divine Providence. Well, rest be with him! he instilled into me enough
of knowledge for erecting a scheme of nativity, and therefore will I
presently go about it.' So saying, and having noted the position of the
principal planetary bodies, Guy Mannering returned to the house. The
Laird met him in the parlour, and, acquainting him with great glee that
the boy was a fine healthy little fellow, seemed rather disposed to
press further conviviality. He admitted, however, Mannering's plea of
weariness, and, conducting him to his sleeping apartment, left him to
repose for the evening.