Guy Mannering, Vol. I or, The Astrologer

fields and naked trees, hills obscured by fogs, and flats covered with inundations, he did

ill. Marvel,'

ts, 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 insula

entlemen 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 'l

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 dem

owards 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 p

r 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 predom

the first articulate words, 'will ye no let

m Kippletring

three points of admiration. 'Ow, man! ye should hae hadden eassel to Kippletringan; ye m

orse is almost quite knocked up; can

mshourloch Fair with the year-aulds, and I daurna for my life

od dame? for I can't sleep h

speer for quarters at the Place. I'se warrant th

,' thought Mannering, who was ignorant of the meaning of the

he end o' the loan, and t

am undone! Is there nobody that could guide

way down the muckle loaning. He'll show you the way, sir, and I'se warrant ye'll be weel put up; for they never turn awa naebody frae the door; and ye'll be come in the canny moment, I'm thinking, for the laird's s

t such a time a stranger's ar

that; their house is muckle eneugh

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 drystone fence, and lugged the unresisting animal through the breach, about a ro

w,' he said, 'this is

lace. There's a hantle bogles about it; but ye needna be feared, I

tances to the servant; and the gentleman of the house, who heard his tale from the parlour, stepped forward and welcomed the stranger hospitably to Ellangowan. The boy, made happy with half-a-crown,