Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer

Guy Mannering or The Astrologer is a novel by Sir Walter Scott, published anonymously in 1815. According to an introduction that Scott wrote in 1829, he had originally intended to write a story of the supernatural, but changed his mind soon after starting. The book was a huge success, the first edition selling out on the first day of publication.

Guy Mannering, after leaving Oxford, is travelling alone through some of the wilder parts of Scotland. After losing his way at nightfall, he is directed to Ellangowan, the home of Mr Godfrey Bertram. The friendly but incompetent Bertram welcomes him, although his wife is in labour with their first child. As they await news, Mannering meets Dominie Sampson, a learned but socially inept tutor, and Meg Merrilies, a wild-looking, strident Gypsy woman, who has come to tell the child's fortune. The young student, however, offers to do this from the stars, and predicts that three periods of the boy's life will be very hazardous. Not wishing to concern the parents, he leaves his predictions to be opened when the child is five years old. Mannering also meets smuggler Dirk Hatteraick, who captains vessels active off the wild coast by Ellangowan.

However, before his fifth birthday is over, little Harry Bertram disappears while in the care of an excise-man, Kennedy, who is murdered by smugglers. No trace can be found of the child, though Kennedy's body is found at the foot of a cliff. In her distress, his mother goes into labour once again, and after giving birth to a daughter, she dies.

Seventeen years elapse, and Mannering, now a Colonel, returns from India and visits Scotland once again. He arrives at Ellangowan in time to be present at the death of the now destitute Godfrey Bertram. The possessions and home of Bertram and his daughter Lucy are being sold. Mannering attempts to buy the estate, but is called back to England to attend to his own daughter who is reported to have a lover, so misses the sale. The Ellangowan estate is purchased at a reduced rate by the conniving Glossin, whose unscrupulous dealings have been one of the causes of the Bertrams' downfall. The estate is sold on the condition that if the male heir is found, the estate will return to the Bertrams.