Guy Mannering or The Astrologer

'Come, come, Master Dominie Sampson,' answered Glossin insolently, 'if ye cannot preach in the pulpit, we'll have no preaching here. We go by the law, my good friend; we leave the gospel to you.'

The very mention of this man's name had been of late a subject of the most violent irritation to the unfortunate patient. The sound of his voice now produced an instantaneous effect. Mr. Bertram started up without assistance and turned round towards him; the ghastliness of his features forming a strange contrast with the violence of his exclamations.―'Out of my sight, ye viper! ye frozen viper, that I warmed, till ye stung me! Art thou not afraid that the walls of my father's dwelling should fall and crush thee limb and bone? Are ye not afraid the very lintels of the door of Ellangowan Castle should break open and swallow you up? Were ye not friendless, houseless, penniless, when I took ye by the hand; and are ye not expelling me―me and that innocent girl―friendless, houseless, and penniless, from the house that has sheltered us and ours for a thousand years?'

Had Glossin been alone, he would probably have slunk off; but the consciousness that a stranger was present, besides the person who came with him (a sort of land-surveyor), determined him to resort to impudence. The task, however, was almost too hard even for his effrontery―'Sir―sir―Mr. Bertram, sir, you should not blame me, but your own imprudence, sir―'

The indignation of Mannering was mounting very high. 'Sir,' he said to Glossin, 'without entering into the merits of this controversy, I must inform you that you have chosen a very improper place, time, and presence for it. And you will oblige me by withdrawing without more words.'

Glossin, being a tall, strong, muscular man, was not unwilling rather to turn upon the stranger, whom he hoped to bully, than maintain his wretched cause against his injured patron.―'I do not know who you are, sir,' he said, 'and I shall permit no man to use such d―d freedom with me.'

Mannering was naturally hot-tempered: his eyes flashed a dark light; he compressed his nether lip so closely that the blood sprung, and approaching Glossin―'Look you, sir,' he said,' that you do not know me is of little consequence. _I_ KNOW YOU; and if you do not instantly descend that bank, without uttering a single syllable, by the Heaven that is above us you shall make but one step from the top to the bottom!'

The commanding tone of rightful anger silenced at once the ferocity of the bully. He hesitated, turned on his heel, and, muttering something between his teeth about unwillingness to alarm the lady, relieved them of his hateful company.

Mrs. Mac-Candlish's postilion, who had come up in time to hear what passed, said aloud, 'If he had stuck by the way, I would have lent him a heezie, the dirty scoundrel, as willingly as ever I pitched a boddle.'

He then stepped forward to announce that his horses were in readiness for the invalid and his daughter. But they were no longer necessary. The debilitated frame of Mr. Bertram was exhausted by this last effort of indignant anger, and when he sunk again upon his chair, he expired almost without a struggle or groan. So little alteration did the extinction of the vital spark make upon his external appearance that the screams of his daughter, when she saw his eye fix and felt his pulse stop, first announced his death to the spectators.

CHAPTER XIV

The bell strikes one. We take no note of time

But from its loss. To give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound.

YOUNG. 

The moral which the poet has rather quaintly deduced from the necessary mode of measuring time may be well applied to our feelings respecting that portion of it which constitutes human life. We observe the aged, the infirm, and those engaged in occupations of immediate hazard, trembling as it were upon the very brink of non-existence, but we derive no lesson from the precariousness of their tenure until it has altogether failed. Then, for a moment at least―

Our hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down―on what? a fathomless abyss,
A dark eternity, how surely ours!