Guy Mannering Or The Astrologer

'I know it,' replied his master. 'And now, madam, if you will have the goodness to allow me to occupy the parlour you mentioned, as you are disappointed of your guests - '

'Certainly, sir,' said Mrs. Mac-Candlish, and hastened to light the way with all the imperative bustle which an active landlady loves to display on such occasions.

'Young man,' said the Deacon to the servant, filling a glass, 'ye'll no be the waur o' this, after your ride.'

'Not a feather, sir; thank ye, your very good health, sir.'

'And wha may your master be, friend?'

'What, the gentleman that was here? that's the famous Colonel Ma

'What, him we read of in the newspapers?'

'Ay, ay, just the same. It was he relieved Cuddieburn, and defended Chingalore, and defeated the great Mahratta chief, Ram Jolli Bundleman. I was with him in most of his campaigns.'

'Lord safe us,' said the landlady; 'I must go see what he would have for supper; that I should set him down here!'

'O, he likes that all the better, mother. You never saw a plainer creature in your life than our old Colonel; and yet he has a spice of the devil in him too.'

The rest of the evening's conversation below stairs tending little to edification, we shall, with the reader's leave, step up to the parlour.

CHAPTER XII

Reputation! that's man's idol

Set up against God, the Maker of all laws,

Who hath commanded us we should not kill,

And yet we say we must, for Reputation!

What honest man can either fear his own,

Or else will hurt another's reputation?

Fear to do base unworthy things is valour;

If they be done to us, to suffer them

Is valour too.

The Colonel was walking pensively up and down the parlour when the officious landlady reentered to take his commands. Having given them in the ma

'I think,' he said, 'madam, if I understood the good people right, Mr. Bertram lost his son in his fifth year?'

'O ay, sir, there's nae doubt o' that, though there are mony idle clashes about the way and ma

'Can you recollect, madam, about what time of the year the child was lost?' The landlady, after a pause and some recollection, answered, 'she was positive it was about this season'; and added some local recollections that fixed the date in her memory as occurring about the begi

The stranger took two or three turns round the room in silence, but signed to Mrs. Mac-Candlish not to leave it.

'Did I rightly apprehend,' he said, 'that the estate of Ellangowan is in the market?'

'In the market? It will be sell'd the morn to the highest bidder - that's no the morn, Lord help me! which is the Sabbath, but on Monday, the first free day; and the furniture and stocking is to be roupit at the same time on the ground. It's the opinion of the haill country that the sale has been shamefully forced on at this time, when there's sae little money stirring in Scotland wi' this weary American war, that somebody may get the land a bargain. Deil be in them, that I should say sae!' - the good lady's wrath rising at the supposed injustice.

'And where will the sale take place?'

'On the premises, as the advertisement says; that's at the house of Ellangowan, your honour, as I understand it.'

'And who exhibits the title-deeds, rent-roll, and plan?'

'A very decent man, sir; the sheriff-substitute of the county, who has authority from the Court of Session. He's in the town just now, if your honour would like to see him; and he can tell you mair about the loss of the bairn than ony body, for the sheriff-depute (that's his principal, like) took much pains to come at the truth o' that matter, as I have heard.'

'And this gentleman's name is - '

'Mac-Morlan, sir; he's a man o' character, and weel spoken o'.'

'Send my compliments - Colonel Ma

'Me, sir? ne'er a word shall I say. I wish your honour (a courtesy), or ony honourable gentleman that's fought for his country (another courtesy), had the land, since the auld family maun quit (a sigh), rather than that wily scoundrel Glossin, that's risen on the ruin of the best friend he ever had. And now I think on't, I'll slip on my hood and pattens, and gang to Mr. Mac-Morlan mysell, he's at hame e'en now; it's hardly a step.'

'Do so, my good landlady, and many thanks; and bid my servant step here with my portfolio in the meantime.'

In a minute or two Colonel Ma

'And now, why will you still upbraid me with my melancholy, Mervyn? Do you think, after the lapse of twenty-five years, battles, wounds, imprisonment, misfortunes of every description, I can be still the same lively, unbroken Guy Ma

'The former, you will say, had nothing very appalling. All was not for the best; but all was tolerable. My father, the eldest son of an ancient but reduced family, left me with little, save the name of the head of the house, to the protection of his more fortunate brothers. They were so fond of me that they almost quarrelled about me. My uncle, the bishop, would have had me in orders, and offered me a living; my uncle, the merchant, would have put me into a counting-house, and proposed to give me a share in the thriving concern of Ma

'You will say, my military career in India, when I followed my regiment there, should have given me some satisfaction; and so it assuredly has. You will remind me also, that if I disappointed the hopes of my guardians, I did not incur their displeasure; that the bishop, at his death, bequeathed me his blessing, his manuscript sermons, and a curious portfolio containing the heads of eminent divines of the church of England; and that my uncle, Sir Paul Ma