Guy Mannering.

162 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
unbroken Guy 3aannering, who climbed Skiddaw with
you, or shot grouse upon Crossfell? That you, who have
remained in the bosom of domestic happiness, experience
little change, that your step is as light, and your fancy as
full of sunshine, is a blessed effect of health and temperament, co-operating with content, and a smooth current
down the course of life. But my career has been one of
difficulties, and doubts, and errors. From my infancy I
have been the sport of accident, and though the wind has
often borne me into harbour, it has seldom been into that
which the pilot destined. Let me recall to you-but the'task must be brief-the odd and wayward fates of my
youth, and the misfortunes of my manhood.
" The former, you will say, had nothing very appalling.
All was not for the best; but all was tolerable. My
father, the eldest son of an ancient but reduced family,
left me with little, save the name of the head of the
house, to the protection of his more fortunate brothers.
They were so fond of me that they almost quarrelled
about me. iMy uncle, the bishop, would have had me in
orders, and offered me a living-my uncle, the merchant,
would have put me into a counting-house, and proposed
to give me a share in the thriving concern of Mannering
and Marshall, in Lombard Street. So between these two
stools, or rather these two soft, easy, well-stuffed chairs
of divinity and commerce, my unfortunate person slipped
down, and pitched upon a dragoon saddle. Again, the
bishop wished me to marry the niece and heiress of the
Dean of Lincoln; and my uncle, the alderman, proposed
to me the only daughter of old Sloethorn, the great winemerchant, rich enough to play at span-counter with moidores, and make thread-papers of bank notes-and somehow I slipped my neck out of both nooses, and marriedpoor —poor Sophia Wellwood.