, the manly purity of thought,
everywhere mingled with a gentle humour and homely sagacity, but, above
all, the rich variety and skilful contrast of character and manners, at
once fresh in fiction and stamped with the unforgeable seal of truth and
nature."

ANDREW LANG.

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 remaine