The Black Dwarf | Page 7

his character, do not appear to have been more largely infused
into his original temperament than that of his fellow-men.
"He detested children, on account of their propensity to insult and
persecute him. To strangers he was generally reserved, crabbed, and
surly; and though he by no means refused assistance or charity, he
seldom either expressed or exhibited much gratitude. Even towards
persons who had been his greatest benefactors, and who possessed the
greatest share of his good- will, he frequently displayed much caprice

and jealousy. A lady who had known him from his infancy, and who
has furnished us in the most obliging manner with some particulars
respecting him, says, that although Davie showed as much respect and
attachment to her father's family, as it was in his nature to show to any,
yet they were always obliged to be very cautious in their deportment
towards him. One day, having gone to visit him with another lady, he
took them through his garden, and was showing them, with much pride
and good-humour, all his rich and tastefully assorted borders, when
they happened to stop near a plot of cabbages which had been
somewhat injured by the caterpillars. Davie, observing one of the ladies
smile, instantly assumed his savage, scowling aspect, rushed among the
cabbages, and dashed them to pieces with his KENT, exclaiming, 'I
hate the worms, for they mock me!'
"Another lady, likewise a friend and old acquaintance of his, very
unintentionally gave David mortal offence on a similar occasion.
Throwing back his jealous glance as he was ushering her into his
garden, he fancied he observed her spit, and exclaimed, with great
ferocity, 'Am I a toad, woman! that ye spit at me--that ye spit at me?'
and without listening to any answer or excuse, drove her out of his
garden with imprecations and insult. When irritated by persons for
whom he entertained little respect, his misanthropy displayed itself in
words, and sometimes in actions, of still greater rudeness; and he used
on such occasions the most unusual and singularly savage imprecations
and threats." [SCOTS MAGAZINE, vol. lxxx. p.207.]
Nature maintains a certain balance of good and evil in all her works;
and there is no state perhaps so utterly desolate, which does not possess
some source of gratification peculiar to itself, This poor man, whose
misanthropy was founded in a sense on his own preternatural deformity,
had yet his own particular enjoyments. Driven into solitude, he became
an admirer of the beauties of nature. His garden, which he sedulously
cultivated, and from a piece of wild moorland made a very productive
spot, was his pride and his delight; but he was also an admirer of more
natural beauty: the soft sweep of the green hill, the bubbling of a clear
fountain, or the complexities of a wild thicket, were scenes on which he
often gazed for hours, and, as he said, with inexpressible delight. It was

perhaps for this reason that he was fond of Shenstone's pastorals, and
some parts of PARADISE LOST. The author has heard his most
unmusical voice repeat the celebrated description of Paradise, which he
seemed fully to appreciate. His other studies were of a different cast,
chiefly polemical. He never went to the parish church, and was
therefore suspected of entertaining heterodox opinions, though his
objection was probably to the concourse of spectators, to whom he
must have exposed his unseemly deformity. He spoke of a future state
with intense feeling, and even with tears. He expressed disgust at the
idea, of his remains being mixed with the common rubbish, as he called
it, of the churchyard, and selected with his usual taste a beautiful and
wild spot in the glen where he had his hermitage, in which to take his
last repose. He changed his mind, however, and was finally interred in
the common burial- ground of Manor parish.
The author has invested Wise Elshie with some qualities which made
him appear, in the eyes of the vulgar, a man possessed of supernatural
power. Common fame paid David Ritchie a similar compliment, for
some of the poor and ignorant, as well as all the children, in the
neighbourhood, held him to be what is called uncanny. He himself did
not altogether discourage the idea; it enlarged his very limited circle of
power, and in so far gratified his conceit; and it soothed his
misanthropy, by increasing his means of giving terror or pain. But even
in a rude Scottish glen thirty years back, the fear of sorcery was very
much out of date.
David Ritchie affected to frequent solitary scenes, especially such as
were supposed to be haunted, and valued himself upon his courage in
doing so. To be sure he had little chance of meeting anything more ugly
than himself. At