Waverly (Unabridged). Walter Scott

oblectation of the gullet; albeit I might deprecate the law of Pittacus of Mitylene, who punished doubly a crime committed under the influence of ‘Liber Pater’; nor would I utterly accede to the objurgation of the younger Plinius, in the fourteenth book of his ‘Historia Naturalis.’ No, sir, I distinguish, I discriminate, and approve of wine so far only as it maketh glad the face, or, in the language of Flaccus, recepto amico.’

      Thus terminated the apology which the Baron of Bradwardine thought it necessary to make for the superabundance of his hospitality; and it may be easily believed that he was neither interrupted by dissent nor any expression of incredulity.

He then invited his guest to a morning ride, and ordered that Davie Gellatley should meet them at the dern path with Ban and Buscar. ‘For, until the shooting season commence, I would willingly show you some sport, and we may, God willing, meet with a roe. The roe, Captain Waverley, may be hunted at all times alike; for never being in what is called PRIDE OF GREASE, he is also never out of season, though it be a truth that his venison is not equal to that of either the red or fallow deer.³³ But he will serve to show how my dogs run; and therefore they shall attend us with David Gellatley.’

      Waverley expressed his surprise that his friend Davie was capable of such trust; but the Baron gave him to understand that this poor simpleton was neither fatuous, nec naturaliter idiota, as is expressed in the brieves of furiosity, but simply a crack-brained knave, who could execute very well any commission which jumped with his own humour, and made his folly a plea for avoiding every other. ‘He has made an interest with us,’ continued the Baron, ‘by saving Rose from a great danger with his own proper peril; and the roguish loon must therefore eat of our bread and drink of our cup, and do what he can, or what he will, which, if the suspicions of Saunderson and the Bailie are well founded, may perchance in his case be commensurate terms.’

      Miss Bradwardine then gave Waverley to understand that this poor simpleton was dotingly fond of music, deeply affected by that which was melancholy, and transported into extravagant gaiety by light and lively airs. He had in this respect a prodigious memory, stored with miscellaneous snatches and fragments of all tunes and songs, which he sometimes applied, with considerable address, as the vehicles of remonstrance, explanation, or satire. Davie was much attached to the few who showed him kindness; and both aware of any slight or ill usage which he happened to receive, and sufficiently apt, where he saw opportunity, to revenge it. The common people, who often judge hardly of each other as well as of their betters, although they had expressed great compassion for the poor innocent while suffered to wander in rags about the village, no sooner beheld him decently clothed, provided for, and even a sort of favourite, than they called up all the instances of sharpness and ingenuity, in action and repartee, which his annals afforded, and charitably bottomed thereupon a hypothesis that David Gellatley was no farther fool than was necessary to avoid hard labour. This opinion was not better founded than that of the Negroes, who, from the acute and mischievous pranks of the monkeys, suppose that they have the gift of speech, and only suppress their powers of elocution to escape being set to work. But the hypothesis was entirely imaginary; David Gellatley was in good earnest the half-crazed simpleton which he appeared, and was incapable of any constant and steady exertion. He had just so much solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity, so much wild wit as saved him from the imputation of idiocy, some dexterity in field-sports (in which we have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in the treatment of animals entrusted to him, warm affections, a prodigious memory, and an ear for music.

      The stamping of horses was now heard in the court, and Davie’s voice singing to the two large deer greyhounds,

      Hie away, hie away,

      Over bank and over brae,

      Where the copsewood is the greenest,

      Where the fountains glisten sheenest,

      Where the lady-fern grows strongest,

      Where the morning dew lies longest,

      Where the black-cock sweetest sips it,

      Where the fairy latest trips it.

      Hie to haunts right seldom seen,

      Lovely, lonesome, cool, and green,

      Over bank and over brae,

      Hie away, hie away.

      ‘Do the verses he sings,’ asked Waverley, ‘belong to old Scottish poetry, Miss Bradwardine?’

      ‘I believe not,’ she replied. ‘This poor creature had a brother, and Heaven, as if to compensate to the family Davie’s deficiencies, had given him what the hamlet thought uncommon talents. An uncle contrived to educate him for the Scottish kirk, but he could not get preferment because he came from our GROUND. He returned from college hopeless and brokenhearted, and fell into a decline. My father supported him till his death, which happened before he was nineteen. He played beautifully on the flute, and was supposed to have a great turn for poetry. He was affectionate and compassionate to his brother, who followed him like his shadow, and we think that from him Davie gathered many fragments of songs and music unlike those of this country. But if we ask him where he got such a fragment as he is now singing, he either answers with wild and long fits of laughter, or else breaks into tears of lamentation; but was never heard to give any explanation, or to mention his brother’s name since his death.’

      ‘Surely,’ said Edward, who was readily interested by a tale bordering on the romantic, ‘surely more might be learned by more particular inquiry.’

      ‘Perhaps so,’ answered Rose; ‘but my father will not permit any one to practise on his feelings on this subject.’

      By this time the Baron, with the help of Mr. Saunderson, had indued a pair of jack-boots of large dimensions, and now invited our hero to follow him as he stalked clattering down the ample stair-case, tapping each huge balustrade as he passed with the butt of his massive horse-whip, and humming, with the air of a chasseur of Louis Quatorze, —

      Pour la chasse ordonnee il faut preparer tout.

      Ho la ho! Vite! vite debout!

33 The learned in cookery dissent from the Baron of Bradwardine, and hold the roe venison dry and indifferent food, unless when dressed in soup and Scotch collops.

      Chapter XIII.

       A More Rational Day than the Last

       Table of Contents

      The Baron of Bradwardine, mounted on an active and well-managed horse, and seated on a demi-pique saddle, with deep housings to agree with his livery, was no bad representative of the old school. His light-coloured embroidered coat, and superbly barred waistcoat, his brigadier wig, surmounted by a small gold-laced cocked-hat, completed his personal costume; but he was attended by two well-mounted servants on horseback, armed with holster-pistols.

      In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the admiration of every farm-yard which they passed in their progress, till, ‘low down in a grassy vale,’ they found David Gellatley leading two very tall deer greyhounds, and presiding over half a dozen curs, and about as many bare-legged and bare-headed boys, who, to procure the chosen distinction of attending on the chase, had not failed to tickle his ears with the dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley, though probably all and each had hooted him on former occasions in the character of daft Davie. But this is no uncommon strain of flattery to persons in office, nor altogether confined to the barelegged villagers of Tully-Veolan; it was in fashion Sixty Years Since, is now, and will be six hundred years hence, if this admirable compound of folly and knavery, called the world, shall be then in existence.

      These Gillie-wet-foots, as they were called, were destined to beat the bushes, which they performed with so much success, that, after half an hour’s search, a roe was started, coursed, and killed; the Baron following