s and with the low
continual growl of Solway surf in our ears, we bent ourselves to fill a
gap in a hopeless day by the retelling of

A FIRST TALE FROM "GUY MANNERING"

I. WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

THROUGH storm and darkness a young Oxford scholar came to the New Place
of Ellangowan. He had been again and again refused shelter along the
road for himself and his tired horse, but at last he found himself
welcomed by Godfrey Bertram, the Laird of Ellangowan, attended by
Dominie Sampson, his faithful companion, the village schoolmaster, on
the threshold of the great house.

That very night an heir was born to the line of the Bertrams of
Ellangowan, one of the most ancient in Galloway, and as usual the New
Place was full of company come from far and near to make merry over the
event. Godfrey himself, a soft, good-natured, pliable man, welcomed
Mannering (for that was the name of the young Oxford student), and set
him forthwith to calculating the horoscope of the babe from the stars.
This, Mannering, to whom astrology seemed no better than child's play,
was at first unwilling to do, until the awkward opposition of Dominie
Sampson, as well as some curiosity to see if he could remember the terms
of the sham-science learned in youth, caused him to consent to make the
calculation.

He was still further pushed on by the appearance of a wild gipsy woman,
a sort of queen among the ragged wandering tribe which camped in a
little hamlet on the Laird's estates. She entered the house singing
shrilly a kind of ancient spell:

"Trefoil, vervain, John's wort, dill,
Hinder 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 weir."

So sang Meg Merrilies, the gipsy, a great cudgel in her hand, and her
dress and bearing more like those of a man than of a woman. Elf-locks
shot up through the holes in her bonnet, and her black eyes rolled with
a kind of madness. Soon, however, Godfrey, who evidently only half
disbelieved in her powers as a witch, dismissed her to the kitchen with
fair words, while Guy Mannering, whom his strange adventure had rendered
sleepless, walked forth into the night. The vast ruins of the ancient
castle of the Bertrams rose high and silent on the cliffs above him, but
beneath, in the little sandy c