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 commenced, 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.<*> But he will serve to show how my dogs run * 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.
and therefore they shall attend us with Davie Gellatley.''
Waverley expressed his surprise that his friend Davie was capable of such trust; but the Baron gave him to understand that this poor ******ton was neither fatuous _nec naturaliter idiota,_ as is expressed in the brieves of furiosity, but simply a crackbrained 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 ******ton was doatingly 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 Davie 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.Davie Gellatley was in good earnest the half-crazed ******ton 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 Davies 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 staircase, 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 ordonn<e'>e il faut pr<e'>parer tout, Ho la ho! Vite! vite debout.