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Text extracted from opening pages of book: GUY MANNERING; OR, THE ASTROLOGER. Tis said that words and signs hare power O'er sprites in planetary hour; But scarce I praise their venturous part, Who tamper with such dangerous art Lay of the Last Minstrel. VOL. IV. GUY MANNERING; OR, THE ASTROLOGER. CHAPTER I. I renounce your defiance; if you parley so roughly I'll barricado my gates against you Do you see yon bay window ? Storm, I care not, serving the gtod Duke of Norfolk. Merry Devil of Edmonton, Julia Mannering to Matilda Marchmont. I RISE from a sick-Led, my dearest Matilda, ta communicate the strange and frightful scenes which have just passed. Alas ! how little we ought to jest with futurity I I closed my letter to you in high spirits, with some flippant remarks on your taste for the romantic and extraordinary in fictitious narrative. How little I expected to have had such events to record in the course of a few days I And to witness scenes of terror, or to contemplate them in description, is as different, my dearest Matilda, as to bend over the brink of a precipice holding by the frail tenure of a half-rooted shrub, or to admire the same precipice as represented in the landscape of Salvator. But I will not anticipate my narrative* 4 GUY MANNERING. The first part of my story is frightful enough, though it had nothing to interest my feelings. You must know that this country is particularly favour able to the commerce of a set of desperate men from the Isle of Man, which is nearly opposite. These smugglers are numerous, resolute, and for midable, and have at different times become the dread of the neighbourhood when any one has in terfered with their contraband trade. The localmagistrates, from timidity or worse motives, have become shy of acting against them, and impunity has rendered them equally daring and desperate. With all this, my father, a stranger in the land, and invested with no official authority, had, one would think, nothing to do. But it must be owned, that, as he himself expresses it, he was born when Mars was lord of his ascendant, and that strife and blood shed find him out in circumstances and situations the most retired and pacific. About eleven o'clock on last Tuesday morning, while Hazlewood and nay father were proposing to walk to a little lake about three miles' distance, for the purpose of shooting wild ducks, and while Lucy and I were busied with arranging our plan of work attd study for the day, we were alarmed by the sound . of horses' feet, advancing very fast up the avenue. The ground was hardened by a severe frost, which made the clatter of the hoofs sound yet louder and sharper. In a moment, two or three men, armed, mounted, and each leading a spare horse loaded with packages, appeared on the lawn, and, without keepiag open the road, which makes GUY MANNERING. 5 a small sweep, pushed right across for the door of the house. Their appearance was in the utmost degree hurried and disordered, and they frequent ly looked hack like men who apprehended a close and deadly pursuit. My father and Hazlewood hur ried to the front door to demand who they were, and what was their business. They were revenue offi cers, they stated, who had seized these horses, load ed with contraband articles, at a place about three miles off. But the smugglers had heen reinforced, and were now pursuing them with the avowed pur pose of recovering the goods, and putting to death the officers who had presumed to do their duty. The men said, that their horses being loaded, and the pursuers gaining ground upon them, they had fled to Woodbourne, conceiving, that as my father had served the king, he would not refuse to protect the servants of government, when threatened to he murdered in the discharge of their duty. My father, to whom, in his enthusiastic feelings of military loyalty, even a dog would be of import ance if he came in the king's name, gave prompt or ders for securing the goods in the hall, arming the servants, and

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