Scott's 'Guy Mannering' revisited

 

Meg Merrilees at the Kaim of Derncleugh

I purchased the three volume first edition on 16th August 2019 for £85. I see that my previous Blog on Walter Scott's Guy Mannering was written on 13th February 2020 - nearly a year ago! After this second reading, I can recommend a return to most of his novels. Knowing the story did not affect me adversely at all; rather, I was able to look 'deeper' into the various characters. Above all, there is the outlandish Meg, re-appearing whenever necessary to help right the past wrong done to the Bertram family.

Scott is at his best in describing characters, with plot lines trailing behind. One also feels he is more interested in the gypsy and smuggler class, and eccentrics like lawyer Pleydell and farmer Dandie Dimont than the more 'normal' (dare one say 'boring') heroes and heroines.

Guy Mannering is merely described, in later years, as a handsome tall thin figure, dressed in black, as appeared when he laid aside his riding coat; his age might be between forty and fifty; his cast of features grave and interesting, and his air somewhat military. Every point of his appearance and address bespoke the gentleman. His daughter writes to her friend: His eyes are rather naturally light in character, but agitation or anger gives them a darker and more fiery glance...

Godfrey Bertram, of Ellangowan, succeeded to a long pedigree and a short rent-roll...was one of those second-rate sort of persons, that are to be found frequently in rural situations...a good humoured listless of countenance formed the only remarkable expression of his features...his physiognomy indicated the inanity of character which pervaded his life...

The dying Godfrey Bertram with daughter Lucy

Charles Hazlewood and Dominie Sampson 

Dominie Abel Sampson was of low birth, but having evinced, even from his cradle, an uncommon seriousness of disposition, [his] poor parents were encouraged to hope that their bairn, as they expressed it, "might wag his pow in a pulpit"...his tall ungainly figure, his taciturn and grave manners, and some grotesque habits of swinging his limbs, and screwing his visage while reciting his task, made poor Sampson the ridicule of all his school-companions...the long sallow visage, the goggle eyes, the huge under-jaw, which appeared not to open and shut by an act of volition, but to be dropped and hoisted up again by some complicated machinery within the inner man, the harsh and dissonant voice, and the screech-owl notes... and so on. He is there, real, in front of our eyes! The description of his delight, when asked to arrange Guy Mannering's Library (the late bishop's) is Scott at his best. Julia describes his attending a meal: he pronounces a grace that sounds like the scream of the man in the square that used to cry mackerel, flings his meat down his throat by shovelfuls, like a person loading a cart... Normally, if he utters half a sentence, his jaws would have ached for a month under the unusual fatigue of such a continued exercise.

Meg Merrilies was full six feet high, wore a man's great coat over the rest of her dress, had in her hand a goodly slow-thorn cudgel, and in all points of equipment, except her petticoats, seemed rather masculine than feminine. Her dark elf-locks shot out like the snakes of a gorgon...while her eye had a wild roll that indicated something like real or affected insanity.

Dandie Dinmont of Charlies-Hope, Liddesdale, engages one's attention from the first...a tall, stout, country-looking man, in a large jockey great-coat talking about his dogs: there's auld Pepper and auld Mustard, and young Pepper and young Mustard, and little Pepper and little Mustard... It is clear he is a favourite of the author. After being attacked by ruffians, he says, Hout, tout, man - I would never be making a hum-dudgeon about a scart on the pow...

I commented on the lawyer Pleydell - the lively sharp-looking gentleman -  and the reading of Margaret Bertram's will (again a Scott classic), in my last Blog. Suffice it to say, he was just as amusing in the re-reading.

Lawyer Pleydell presiding at Clerihugh's Tavern, Edinburgh

Then there are the two humorous little cameos of the jailer Mac-Guffog - a stout bandy-legged fellow, with a neck like a bull, a face like a fire-brand, and a most portentous squint of the left eye; and his wife - an awful spectacle [whose] growling voice of this amazon, which rivalled in harshness the crashing music of her own bolts and bars...

Other characters are not really as interesting.

'Vanbeest Brown'/ Henry Bertram's form was tall, manly, and active, and his features corresponded with his person; for, although far from regular, they had an expression of intelligence and good humour, and when he spoke, or was particularly animated, might be decidedly pronounced interesting.

Julia Mannering was of the middle size, or rather less, but formed with much elegance; piercing dark eyes, and jet-black hair of great length, corresponded with the vivacity and intelligence of features, in which were blended a little haughtiness, and a little bashfulness, a great deal of shrewdness, and some power of humorous sarcasm. Her character, mainly surmised through her letters to her confidante Matilda, is a little bland, but she is clearly capable of romantic feelings for 'Brown' even if she remains a dutiful daughter. Scott suggests the letters throw light upon natural good sense, principle, and feelings, blemished by an imperfect education. 

There is very little to say about Charles Hazlewood and Lucy Bertram

Meg Merrilees orders Henry Bertram to follow her

as Lucy Bertram, Julia Mannering and Dandie Dinmont look on

Chapter XIV in the final Volume is well  done, where Meg Merrilees leads Henry Bertram and Dandie Dinmont (followed by Charles Hazlewood) to the cave where Dirk Hatterick is hiding; as are the subsequent death of Merrilees and the end of Glossin, strangled in prison by Hatterick.

Dirk Hatterick accosted by Meg Merrilees in the Cave