=The Black Dwarf.=
LANG SHEEP AND SHORT SHEEP.
Our readers will readily remember the curious explanation which takes
place between Bauldy, the old-world shepherd, in the Introduction to
this tale, and Mr. Peter Pattieson, respecting the difference between
_lang_ sheep and _short_ sheep. We can attest, from unexceptionable
authority, that a conversation once actually took place between Sir
Walter Scott, James Hogg, and Mr. Laidlaw, the _factor_ of the former,
in which the same disquisition and nearly the same words occurred.
Messrs. H. and L. began the dispute about the various merits of the
different sheep; and many references being made to the respective
_lengths_ of the animals, Sir Walter became quite tired of their
unintelligible technicals, and very simply asked them how sheep came
to be distinguished by longitude, having, he observed, never perceived
any remarkable difference between one sheep and another in that
particular. It was then that an explanation took place, very like that
of Bauldy in the Introduction; and we think there can be no doubt that
the fictitious incident would never have taken place but for the real
circumstance we have related.
The dispute with Christy Wilson, butcher in Gandercleugh, which it
was the object of Bauldy’s master to settle, and in consequence of
which being amicably adjusted, the convivialities that brought out
from the shepherd the materials of the tale were entered into, has, we
understand, its origin in a process once before the Court of Session,
respecting what is termed a _luck-penny_ on a bargain.
DAVID RITCHIE.
(_Elshender the Recluse._)
The particulars of David Ritchie’s life, which are in themselves
sufficiently meagre, have been more than once already laid before
the public. In _Blackwood’s Monthly Magazine_ for June, and in the
_Edinburgh Magazine_ for October, 1817, accounts of the supposed
original of the Black Dwarf are given, evidently from no mean
authority, if we may judge from the style in which these narratives are
written. A separate production, also, of a very interesting nature,
embellished with a striking and singularly correct likeness of the
dwarf, appeared in 1820, and comprised every anecdote of this singular
being previously uncollected. It is therefore conceived totally
unnecessary to detail at any length a subject which, independent of
its want of elegance and interest, has been already so completely
exhausted. To give a few sketches of the character and habits of David
Ritchie, and contrast them with those of the more sublime Elshender,
will, it is hoped, prove a more grateful entertainment.
David Ritchie was a pauper, who lived the greater part of a long life,
and finally died so late as the year 1811, in a solitary cottage
situated in the romantic glen of Manor in Peebles-shire. This vale, now
rendered classic ground by the abode of the Black Dwarf, was otherwise
formerly remarkable as having been the retirement of the illustrious
and venerable Professor Ferguson.[20]
His person coincided singularly well with the description of the
fictitious recluse. He had been deformed and horrible since his birth
in no ordinary degree, which was probably the cause of the analogous
peculiarities of his temper. His countenance, of the darkest of dark
complexions, was half covered with a long grisly black beard, and bore,
as the centre of its system of terrors, two eyes of piercing black,
which were sometimes, in his excited moments, lighted up with wild and
supernatural lustre. His head was of a singular shape, conical and
oblong, and might now form no unworthy subject for the studies of the
Phrenological Society. To speak in their language, he must have had few
of the moral or intellectual faculties developed in any perfection; for
his brow retreated immediately above the eyebrows, and threw nearly the
whole of his head, which was large, behind the ear, where, it is said,
the meaner organs of the brain are situated—giving immense scope to
cruelty, obstinacy, self-esteem, etc. His nose was long and aquiline;
his mouth wide and contemptuously curled upward; and his chin protruded
from the visage in a long grisly peak. His body, short and muscular,
was thicker than that of most ordinary men, and, with his arms,
which were long and of great power, might have formed the parts of a
giant, had not nature capriciously curtailed his form of other limbs
conformable to these proportions. His arms had the same defect with
those of the celebrated Betterton, and he could not lift them higher
than his breast; yet such was their strength, that he has been known
to tear up a tree by the roots, which had baffled the united efforts
of two labourers, who had striven by digging to eradicate it. His legs
were short, fin-like, and bent outwards, with feet totally inapplicable
to the common purposes of walking. These he constantly endeavoured to
conceal from sight by wrapping them up in immense masses of rags. This
ungainly part of his figure is remarkable as the only one which differs
materially from the description of “Cannie Elshie,” whose “body, thick
and square, was mounted upon two large feet.”
He was the son of very poor parents, who, at an early period of his
life, endeavoured to place him with a tradesman in the metropolis to
learn the humble art of brushmaking; which purpose he however soon
deserted in disgust, on account of the insupportable notice which
his uncouth form attracted in the streets. His spirit, perhaps, also
panted for the seclusion of his native hills, where he might have ease
to indulge in that solitude so appropriate to the outcast ugliness of
his person, and free from the insulting gaze of vulgar curiosity. Here,
in the valley of his birth, he formed the romantic project of building
a small hut for himself, in which, like the Recluse of the tale, he
might live for ever retired from the race for whose converse he was
unfitted, and give unrestrained scope to the moods of his misanthropy.
He constructed this hermitage in precisely the same manner with the
Black Dwarf of Mucklestane Moor. Huge rocks, which he had rolled down
from the neighbouring hill, formed the foundation and walls, to which
an alternate layer of turf, as is commonly used in cottages, gave
almost the consistency and fully the comfort of mortar. He is said
to have evinced amazing bodily strength in moving and placing these
stones, such as the strongest men, with all the advantages of stature
and muscular proportion, could hardly have equalled. This corporeal
energy, which lay chiefly in his arms, will remind the reader of the
exertions of the Black Dwarf, as witnessed by Hobbie Elliot and young
Earnscliff, on the morning after his first appearance, when employed
in arranging the foundations of his hermitage out of the Grey Geese of
Mucklestane Moor.—_See_ pp. 78, 79.
When the young hermit had finished his hut, and succeeded in furnishing
it with a few coarse household utensils, framed chiefly by his own
hands, he began to form a garden. In the cultivation and adornment
of this spot, he displayed a degree of natural taste and ingenuity
that might have fitted him for a higher fate than the seclusion of a
hermitage. In a short time he had stocked it with such a profusion
of fruit-trees, herbs, vegetables, and flowers, that it seemed a
little forest of beauty—a shred of Eden, fit to redeem the wilderness
around from its character of desolation—a gem on the swarth brow of
the desert. Not only did it exhibit the finest specimens of flowers
indigenous to this country, but he had also contrived to procure a
number of exotics, whose Linnæan names he would roll forth to the
friends whom he indulged with an admission within its precincts, with
a pomposity of voice that never failed to enhance their admiration. It
soon came to be much resorted to by visitors, being accounted, with
_the genius of the place_, one of the most remarkable curiosities
of the county. Dr. Ferguson used sometimes to visit the eccentric
solitary, as an amusement in that retired spot; and Sir Walter Scott,
who was a frequent guest at the house of that venerable gentleman, is
said to have often held long communings with him; likewise several
other individuals of literary celebrity.
There is something more peculiarly romantic and poetical in the
circumstance of the Misanthrope’s attachment to his garden than can
be found in any of the other habits and qualities attributed to him.
The care of that beautiful spot was his chief occupation, and may be
said to have been the only pleasure his life was ever permitted to
experience. On it alone he could employ that _faculty_ of affection
with which every heart, even that of the cynic, is endowed. Shut out
from the correspondence and sympathy of his own fellow-creatures by the
insurmountable pale of his own ugliness, there existed, in the whole
circle of nature, no other object that could receive his affections, or
reply to the feelings he had to impart. In flowers alone, those lineal
and undegenerate descendants of Paradise, the Solitary found an object
of attachment that could do equal honour to his feelings and to his
taste. His garden was a perfect seraglio of vegetable beauties, and
_there_ he could commune with a thousand objects of affection, that
never shrunk from the touch which threatened horror and pollution to
all the world beside.
By the peculiarities of his person, as well as by the other abject
circumstances of his condition, it may be easily supposed that the
Hermit of Manor was entirely excluded from that great solace of the
miseries of man, the sympathy to be derived from the tenderness and
affections of woman. He was irredeemably condemned, as it were, to a
dreary bachelorhood of the heart, which knew that there was for it
no hope, no possibility of enjoyment. Perhaps the constant sense of
loathsomeness in the eyes of the fair part of creation might help to
increase the natural wretchedness of his existence. The misanthropy of
Elshender is pathetically represented in the tale as springing chiefly
from sources of disappointment like this. It happens, also, that his
humble prototype once ventured to express the sensibilities of the
common delirium of man, and that he was rejected by the object of his
affection. This insult, though it sprung from a very natural feeling
on the part of the woman, sunk deep into his heart; and thus was he
debarred from what would have been the only means of sweetening the
bitter lot of solitary poverty and decrepitude,—dashed back with scorn
from the general draught at which even his inferiors were liberally
indulged. This circumstance forms another trait of resemblance between
the Black Dwarf and David Ritchie; and, by a happy consonance never
before discovered, confirms their identity.
“His habits were, in many respects, singular, and indicated a mind
sufficiently congenial with its uncouth tabernacle. A jealous,
misanthropical, and irritable temper was his most prominent
characteristic. The sense of his deformity haunted him like a phantom;
and the insults and scorn to which this exposed him had poisoned his
heart with fierce and bitter feelings, which, from other traits in
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
even towards persons who had been his greatest benefactors, and who
possessed the greatest share of his good-will, he frequently betrayed
much caprice and jealousy. A lady, who knew him from his infancy,
says, that, although he showed as much attachment and respect for her
father’s family as it was in his nature to show for 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, here picking up with his
long staff some insidious weed, and there turning to digress into the
history of some mysterious exotic, 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 a savage
scowling aspect, rushed among the cabbages, and dashed them to pieces
with his _kent_, exclaiming, ‘I hate the worms, for they mock me!’”
When he visited the neighbouring metropolis of the county, which
happened very seldom towards the latter part of his life, he was
generally followed by crowds of boys, who hooted and insulted him,
with all that disregard of feeling and insolence of wickedness so often
to be observed in children of the lower ranks in Scottish villages.
On these occasions he was wont to give his persecutors the “length of
his _kent_,” as he called it, when he could reach them; but they being
generally too nimble for his crippled evolutions, he had often to vent
his revenge in the more harmless form of curses. These were frequently
of the most terrific and unusual kind. He is even said to have evinced
something like _genius_ in the invention of his imprecations, some of
which far surpassed Gray’s celebrated
“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!”
He would swear he would “cleave them to the _harn-pans_, if he had but
his _cran_ fingers on them;” that he “could pour seething lead down
their throats;” that “hell would never be full till they were in it;”
and frequently exclaimed that there was nothing he would “like so well
as to see their souls girnin’ for a thousand eternities on the red-het
brander o’ the de’il!”
Among the traits of his character, there is none reminds us so strongly
of the Misanthrope of the tale as this propensity to execration. The
same style of discourse, and almost the same terms of imprecation,
are common to both. The _Mighty Unknown_ has put expressions into the
mouth of this character which, as specimens of the grand and sublime,
are altogether unequalled in the whole circle of English poetry—not
even excepting the magnificent thunders of Byron’s muse. Now, his
prototype is well remembered, by those who have conversed with him, to
have frequently used language which, sometimes sinking to delicacy and
even elegance, and at others rising to a very tempest of execration
and diabolical expression, might have been deemed almost miraculous
from _his_ mouth, could it not have been attributed partly to the
impassioned inspiration that naturally flowed from his consciousness
of deformity, from keen resentment of insult, and from the despairing,
loveless sterility of his heart.
The history of his death-bed furnishes us with an anecdote of a
beautiful and atoning character.
He had always through life expressed the utmost abhorrence of being
buried among what he haughtily termed the “_common brush_” in
the parish churchyard, and pointed out a particular spot, in the
neighbourhood of his cottage, where he had been frequently known to
lie dreaming or reading for long summer days, as a more agreeable
place of interment. It is remarked by a former biographer, that he has
displayed no small portion of taste in the selection of this spot. It
is the summit of a small rising ground, called the Woodhill, situated
nearly in the centre of the parish of Manor, covered with green fern,
and embowered on the top by a circle of _rowan-trees_ planted by the
Dwarf’s own hand, for the double purpose of serving as a mausoleum or
monument to his memory, and keeping away, by the charm of consecration
supposed to be vested in their nature, the influence of witchcraft and
other unhallowed powers from the grave.
All around this romantic spot the waste features of a mountainous
country bound the horizon, presenting a striking contrast to the
fertile beauty of the intermediate valley, and withal capable of
suggesting to the enthusiastic and imaginative mind of the Solitary,
the idea of _this_ scene being a more desirable grave, sacred as it
was in the grandeur of Nature, than the merely _Christian_ ground of a
country churchyard. “What!” the proud unsocial soul of the misanthrope
might perhaps think—
“What! to be decently interred
In a churchyard, and mingle my brave dust
With stinking rogues, that rot in winding-sheets,
Surfeit-slain fools, the common dung o’ th’ soil!”
Nevertheless, whatever might have been his sentiments regarding the
dead among whom, during his days of health, he loathed to be placed,
certain it is, that, when brought within view and feeling of the
awful close of mortal existence, his heart was softened towards his
fellow-men, his antipathies relaxed, and he died with a wish upon his
lips to be buried among his fathers.
In 1820, the writer of the present narrative visited the deserted hut
of “Bowed Davie,” actuated by a sort of pilgrim-respect for scenes
hallowed by genius. The little mansion at present existing is not
that built by the Dwarf’s own hands, but one of later date, erected
by the charity of a neighbouring gentleman in the year 1802. A small
tablet of freestone, bearing this date below the letters D. R. was
still to be seen in the western gable. The eastern division of the
cottage, separated from the other by a partition of stone and lime, and
entering by a different door, was still inhabited by his sister. It is
remarkable that even with that near relation he was never on terms of
any affection; an almost complete estrangement having subsisted between
these two lonely beings for many years. Agnes had been a servant in
the earlier part of her life; but having of late years become subject
to a degree of mental aberration, she had retired from every sort of
employment to her brother’s habitation, where she subsisted on the
charity of the poor’s funds.
On entering the cottage with my guide, we found her seated on a low
settle before the fire, her hands reclined upon her lap, and her eyes
gazing unmeaningly on a small turf fire, which died away in a perfect
wilderness of chimney. Her whole figure and situation reminded me
strongly of the inimitable description of the lone Highland woman
in Hogg’s “Winter Evening Tales,” who sat singing by the light of a
moss-lamp in expectation of the apparition of her son. The scene was
nearly as wild and picturesque, the wretched inmate of the hut was as
lonely and helpless, and there was an air of desolate imbecility about
her that rendered her almost as interesting. It seemed surprising,
indeed, how a person apparently so abandoned by her own energies
and the care of her fellow-creatures, could at all exist in such a
solitude. She neither moved nor looked up on our entrance; but a few
minutes after we had seated ourselves, which we did with silence and
awe, she lifted her eyes, and thereby gave us a fuller view of her
countenance. She much resembled her brother in features, but was not
deformed. Her face was dark with age and wretchedness, and her aspect,
otherwise somewhat appalling, was rendered almost unearthly by two
large black eyes, the lustre of which was not the less horrible by the
imbecility of their gaze. I have been thus particular in describing
her person and circumstances, because I do not judge it impossible
that she may have suggested the original idea of Elspeth Cheyne, the
superannuated dependant of Glenallan, in the “Antiquary.”
Through the medium of my guide, a sagacious country lad, I contrived
to ask her a number of questions concerning her brother; but she was
extremely shy in answering them, and expressed her jealousy of my
intentions by saying, “she wondered why so many grand people had come
from distant parts to inquire after her family—she was sure there was
naething _ill_ anent them.” Little did she, poor soul, understand the
cause of this curiosity, or the honour conferred upon her family by the
attention of the great _hermit-author_, in whose works the very mention
of a name confers immortality.
She showed us her brother’s Bible. It was of Kincaid’s fine quarto
edition, and had been bought in 1773 by the Dwarf himself. His name was
written with his own hand on a blank leaf, and it was with something
like transport that I drew a fac-simile of the autograph into my
pocket-book, which I still preserve.
Agnes Ritchie died in December, 1821, ten years after the decease of
her brother, and was buried in the same grave, in Manor churchyard, on
which occasion the deformed bones of Bowed Davie were found, to the
utter disproof of a vulgar report, that they had suffered resurrection
at the hands of certain anatomists in the College of Glasgow.
I found the part of the house which had been inhabited by the Dwarf
himself deserted as he had left it at his death. Its furniture had been
all dispersed among the curious or the friendly; and a host of poultry
were now suffered to roost on the rafters where only soot formerly
dared to hang. His seat of divination before the door had been suffered
to remain. It was covered very rurally with a ruinous _door of a cart_.
There seemed no precise window in the hut, but it contained numerous
holes and bores all round, some of which were built up with turf. I
drew a pair of rusty nails from a joist near the door, and, wrapping
them up in a piece of paper, brought them away.
We stole a look at the garden, by climbing up the high wall. Some
care has been taken by the neighbouring peasants to preserve it in
good order; but, alas! it is scarcely the ghost of what it was: “Cum
Troja fuit,” there was not a weed to be seen over its whole surface,
nor durst a single _kail-worm_ intrude its unhallowed nose within the
precincts; an hundred mountain-ashes, displaying their red, sour fruit
to the temptation of the passing urchin, stood around like a guard, to
preserve from the influence of witchcraft the richer treasures that lay
within,—
“Fair as the gardens of _Gul_ in their bloom”;
but now weeds and kail-worms were abundant, the rowan-trees had
been all cut down, and Bowed Davie’s garden, that once might have
rivalled Milton’s imagination of Paradise, now lay stale, flat, and
unprofitable—like a buxom cheek deprived of its blushes, or Greece
deserted by the liberty that once, according to Byron, _inspired_ its
beauty. A few _skeps_, however, still remained, which the neighbouring
Hobbie Elliots had _not_ taken away.
It was a curious trait in the character of David Ritchie, that he was
very superstitious. Not only had he planted his house, his garden, and
even his intended grave, all round with the mountain-ash, but it is
also well authenticated that he never went abroad without a branch of
this singular antidote, tied round with a _red thread_, in his pocket,
to prevent the effects of the _evil eye_. When the _sancta sanctorum_
of his domicile were so sacrilegiously ransacked after his death, there
was found an elf-stone, or small round pebble, bored in the centre,
hung by a cord of hair passed through the hole to the head of his bed!
After taking the foregoing view of the Wizard’s fairy bower, I was
next conducted to his grave, which lies in the immediate vicinity. A
slip of his favourite rowan-tree marked the spot. It had been planted
several years after his death by some kindly hand, and, in the absence
of a less perishable monument, seemed a wonderful act of delicacy
and attention. It spoke a pathos to the feelings that the finest
inscription could not have excited,—it was so consonant with the
former desires of “the poor inhabitant below!”
In allusion to the foregoing circumstances, the following verses were
composed, and inserted in a periodical publication:—
I sat upon the Wizard’s grave,—
’Twas on a smiling summer day,
When all around the desert spot
Bloomed in the young delights of May.
In undistinguished lowliness
I found the little mound of earth,
And bitter weeds o’ergrew the place,
As if his heart had given them birth,
And they from thence their nurture drew,—
In such luxuriancy they grew.
No friendship to his grave had lent
Such rudely-sculptured monument
As marked the peasant’s place of rest;
For he, the latest of his race,
Had left behind no friend to trace
Such frail memorial o’er his breast.
But o’er his head a sapling waved
The honours of its slender form,
And in its loneliness had braved
The autumn’s blast—the winter’s storm.
Some friendly hand the tribute gave,
To mark the undistinguished grave,
That, drooping o’er that sod, it might
Repay a world’s neglectful scorn,
And, catching sorrow from the night,
There weep a thousand tears at morn.
It was an emblem of himself—
A widowed, solitary thing,
To which no circling season might
An hour of greener gladness bring;
A churchyard desert was its doom,
Its parent soil a darkling tomb;
Such was the Solitary’s fate,
So joyless and so desolate;
For, blasted soon as it was given,
His was the life that knew no hope,
His was the soul that knew no heaven—
Then, stranger, by one pitying drop,
Forgive, forgive the Misanthrope!
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Dr. Ferguson lived for some time at Neidpath Castle, from whence
he removed to Hallyards, in Manor parish. He was a most devoted and
enthusiastic snuff-taker. An amusing anecdote is preserved of the
good old man’s simplicity of character and love of snuff. One day,
on his son’s arrival from Edinburgh, he begged a pinch from young
Adam’s box, which, on receiving, he declared to be exceedingly good,
and, of course, he inquired where that delightful mixture was to be
procured. “I got it from Traquair,” answered his son, alluding to
a tobacconist of that name, who dwelt at the corner of the piazzas
leading into the Parliament Square in Edinburgh. This the old gentleman
did not comprehend, but thought that his son meant Traquair, a little
village about seven miles down Tweed, beyond Peebles: and he actually
despatched a man on horseback to that place to procure some of the
snuff which had so taken his fancy.