Near the beginning of thi
Near the beginning of this novel, the title character casts a horoscope of a newly-born child and learns that its fifth, tenth, and twenty-first years are going to turn out badly. In his fifth year, that child vanishes while out with a revenue officer who, it turns out, was killed by a Dutch smuggler named Dirk Hatteraick. Dirk plotted the kidnapping of the child at the behest of the evil lawyer Gilbert Glossin, before killing him in prison after their plot was foiled by the lovable gypsy Meg Merrilies. For ten points, name this 1815 novel about the Bertram family and the titular colonel, a typically-convoluted work by Sir Walter Scott.
Near the beginning of this novel, the title character casts a horoscope of a newly-born child and learns that its fifth, tenth, and twenty-first years are going to turn out badly.
{Guy Mannering}