It was apparently neither idiocy nor insanity which gave that wild, unsettled, irregular expression to a face which naturally was rather handsome, but something that resembled a compound of both, where the simplicity of the fool was mixed with the extravagance of a crazed imagination.He sung with great earnestness, and not without some taste, a fragment of an old Scottish ditty:---False love, and hast thou played me thus In summer among the flowers?
I will repay thee back again In winter among the showers.
Unless again, again, my love, Unless you turn again;As you with other maidens rove, I'll smile on other men.<*>
* This is a genuine ancient fragment, with some alteration in the last * two lines.
Here lifting up his eyes, which had hitherto been fixed in observing how his feet kept time to the tune, he beheld Waverley, and instantly doffed his cap, with many grotesque signals of surprise, respect, and salutation.Edward, though with little hope of receiving an answer, to any constant question, requested to know whether Mr.Bradwardine were at home, or where he could find any of the domestics.The questioned party replied,---and, like the witch of Thalaba, ``still his speech was song,''---The Knight's to the mountain His bugle to wind;The Lady's to greenwood.
Her garland to bind.
The bower of Burd Ellen Has moss on the floor, That the step of Lord William Be silent and sure.
This conveyed no information, and Edward, repeating his queries, received a rapid answer, in which, from the haste and peculiarity of the dialect, the word ``butler'' was alone intelligible.
Waverley then requested to see the butler; upon which the fellow, with a knowing look and nod of intelligence, made a signal to Edward to follow, and began to dance and caper down the alley up which he had made his approaches.---A strange guide this, thought Edward, and not much unlike one of Shakspeare's roynish clowns.I am not over prudent to trust to his pilotage; but wiser men have been led by fools.---By this time he reached the bottom of the alley, where, turning short on a little parterre of flowers, shrouded from the east and north by a close yew hedge, he found an old man at work without his coat, whose appearance hovered between that of an upper servant and gardener; his red nose and ruffled shirt belonging to the former profession; his hale and sun-burnt visage, with his green apron, appearing to indicate Old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden.
The major domo---for such he was, and indisputably the second officer of state in the barony (nay, as chief minister of the interior, superior even to Bailie Macwheeble, in his own department of the kitchen and cellar)---the major domo laid down his spade, slipped on his coat in haste, and with a wrathful look at Edward's guide, probably excited by his having introduced a stranger while he was engaged in this laborious, and, as he might suppose it, degrading office, requested to know the gentleman's commands.Being informed that he wished to pay his respects to his master, that his name was Waverley, and so forth, the old man's countenance assumed a great deal of respectful importance.``He could take it upon his conscience to say, his honour would have exceeding pleasure in seeing him.