Till within the last few years, these unfortunate persons were more frequently to be found in their respective villages throughout the country than now; and it is not long since even Edinburgh could boast of her “Daft Laird,” her “Bailie Duff,” and her “Madam Bouzie.” Numerous charitable institutions now seclude most of them from the world. Yet, in many retired districts, where delicacy is not apt to be shocked by sights so common, the blind, the dumb, and the insane are still permitted to mix indiscriminately with their fellow-creatures. Poverty compels many parents to take the easiest method of supporting their unfortunate offspring—that of bringing them up with the rest of the family; the decent pride of the Scottish peasant also makes an application to charity, even in such a case as this, a matter of very rare occurrence; and while superstition points out that those whom God has sent into the world with less than the full share of mental faculties are always made most peculiarly the objects of this care, thus rendering the possession of such a child rather a medium through which the blessings of heaven are diffused than a burden or a curse, the affectionate desire of administering to them all those tender offices which their unhappy situation so peculiarly requires, of tending them with their own eyes, and nursing them with their own hands, that large and overflowing, but not supererogatory share of tenderness with which the darkened and destitute objects are constantly regarded by parents—altogether make their domestication a matter of strong, and happily not unpleasing necessity.
The rustic idiots of Scotland are also in general blessed with a few peculiarities, which seldom fail to make them objects of popular esteem and affection. Many of them exhibit a degree of sagacity or cunning, bearing the same relation to the rest of their intellectual faculties which, in the ruins of a Grecian temple, the coarse and entire foundations bear to the few and scattered but beautiful fragments of the superstructure. This humble qualification, joined sometimes to the more agreeable one of a shrewd and sly humour, while it enables them to keep their own part, and occasionally to baffle sounder judgments, proves an engaging subject of amusement and wonder to the cottage fireside. A wild and wayward fancy, powers of song singularly great, together with a full share of the above qualifications, formed the chief characteristics of Daft Jock Gray of Gilmanscleugh, whom we are about to introduce to the reader as the counterpart of Davie Gellatley.
John Gray is a native of Gilmanscleugh, a farm in the parish of Ettrick, of which his father was formerly the shepherd, and from which, according to Border custom, he derives his popular designation or title “of Gilmanscleugh.” Jock is now above forty years of age, and still wanders through the neighbouring counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, in a half minstrel, half mendicant manner, finding, even after the fervour of youth is past, no pleasure in a sedentary or domestic life.
Many months, many weeks, had not elapsed after Jock came into the world, before all the old women of the Faculty in the parish discovered that “he had a want.” As he grew up, it was found that he had no capacity for the learning taught at the parish school, though, in receiving various other sorts of lore, he showed an aptitude far surpassing that of more highly gifted children. Thus, though he had not steadiness of mind to comprehend the alphabet, and Barrie’s smallest primer was to him as a fountain closed and a book sealed, he caught, at a wonderfully early age, and with a rapidity almost incredible, many fragments of Border song, which he could repeat, with the music, in the precise manner of those who instructed him; and indeed he discovered an almost miraculous power of giving utterance to sounds, in all their extensive and intricate varieties.
All endeavours on the part of his parents to communicate to his mind the seeds of written knowledge having failed, Jock was abandoned to the oral lore he loved so much; and of this he soon possessed himself of an immense stock. His boyhood was passed in perfect idleness; yet if it could have been proved upon him that he had the smallest glimmering of sense, his days would not have been so easy. In Jock’s native district there are just two ways for a boy to spend his time; either he must go to school, or he must tend the cows; and it generally happens that he goes to school in summer and tends the cows in winter. But Jock’s idiocy, like Caleb Balderstone’s “fire,” was an excuse for every duty. As to the first employment, his friend the Dominie bore him out with flying colours; for the second, the question was set for ever at rest by a coup de main achieved by the rascal’s own happy fancy. “John,” says the minister of Yarrow to him one day, “you are the idlest boy in the parish; you do nothing all day but go about from house to house; you might at least herd a few cows.” “Me, sir!” says Jock, with the most stolid stare imaginable, “how could I herd the kye? Losh, sir, I disna ken corn by garse!”—This happy bit was enough to keep Jock comfortable all the rest of his life.
Yet though Jock did not like to be tied down to any regular task, and heartily detested both learning and herding, it could never be said of him that he was sunk in what the country people call even-down idleset. He sometimes condescended to be useful in running errands, and would not grudge the tear and wear of his legs upon a seven-mile journey, when he had the prospect of a halfpenny for his pains; for, like all madmen, he was not insensible, however stupid in every other thing, to the value of money, and knew a bawbee from a button with the sharpest boy in the clachan. It is recorded to his credit, that in all his errands he was ever found scrupulously honest. He was sometimes sent to no less a distance than Innerleithen, which must be at least seven miles from Gilmanscleugh, to procure small grocery articles for his neighbours. Here an old woman, named Nelly Bathgate, kept the metropolitan grocery shop of the parish, forming a sort of cynosure to a district extending nearly from Selkirk to Peebles. This was in the days before St. Ronan’s Well had drawn so many fashionables around that retired spot; and as yet Nelly flourished in her little shop, undisturbed by opposition, like the moon just before the creation of the stars. Rivals innumerable have now sprung up around honest Nelly; and her ancient and respectable, but unpretending sign-board, simply importing, “N. Bathgate, Grocer,” quails under the glowing and gilt-lettered rubrics of “—— ——, from Edinburgh,” etc., etc., etc., who specify that they import their own teas and wines, and deal both en gros et en petit.
For a good while Jock continued to do business with Nelly Bathgate, unannoyed, as the honest dame herself, by any other grocery shop; and indeed how there could be such a thing as another grocery shop in the whole world besides Nelly’s, was quite incomprehensible to Jock. But at length the distracting object arose. A larger shop than Nelly’s, with larger windows, and a larger sign-board, was opened; the proprietor had a son in Edinburgh with a great wholesale grocer in Nicolson Street; and was supplied with a great quantity of goods, at cheap prices, of a more flashy nature than any that had ever before been dreamt of, smelt, or eaten in the village. Here a strange grocery article, called pearl ashes, was sold; and being the first time that such a thing was ever heard of, Innerleithen was just in a ferment about it. Jock was strongly tempted to give his custom, or rather the custom of his employers, to this shop; for really Nelly’s customary snap was growing stale upon his appetite, and he longed to taste the comfits of the new establishment. This Nelly saw and appreciated; and, to prevent the defection she feared, Jock’s allowance was forthwith doubled, and, moreover, occasionally varied by a guerdon of a sweeter sort. But still Jock hankered after the sweets of that strange forbidden shop; and, as he passed towards Nelly’s, after a long hungry journey, could almost have wished himself transformed into one of those yellow bees which buzzed about in noisy enjoyment within the window and show-glasses of the new grocer,—creatures which, to his mind, appeared to pass the most delightful and enviable life. It is certainly much to Jock’s credit, that, even under all these temptations, and though he had frequently a whole sixpence to dispose of in eight or ten different small articles, and, no less, though he had no security engaged for intromissions, so that the whole business was nothing but a question of character,—yea, in not so much as a farthing was he ever found wanting.
Nelly continued to be a good friend to Jock, and Jock adhered as stoutly to Nelly; but it was frequently observed by those who were curious in his mad humours, that his happy conquest over the love of comfits was not accomplished and preserved without many struggles between his instinctive honesty and the old Adam of his inner man. For instance, after having made all his purchases at Mrs. Bathgate’s, when he found only a single solitary farthing remain in his hand, which was to be his faithful companion all the way back to Gilmanscleugh, how forcibly it must have struck his foolish mind, that, by means of the new grocer, he had it in his power to improve his society a thousand-fold, by the simple and easy, though almost-as-good-as-alchymical process of converting its base brazen form into a mass of gilt gingerbread. Such a temptation might have staggered St. Anthony himself, and was certainly far too much for poor Jock’s humble powers of self-denial. In this dreadful emergency, his only means of safety lay in flight; and so it was observed by his rustic friends, on such occasions, that, as soon as he was fairly clear of Nelly’s door, he commenced a sort of headlong trot, as if for the purpose of confounding all dishonourable thoughts in his mind, and ran with all his might out of the village, without looking once aside; for if he had trusted his eye with but one glance at that neat whitewashed window of four panes, where two biscuits, four gingerbread cakes, a small blue bottle of white caraways, and a variety of other nondescript articles of village confectionery displayed their modest yet irresistible allurements, he had been gone!
There is one species of employment in which Jock always displays the utmost willingness to be engaged. It must be understood, that, like many sounder men, he is a great admirer of the fair sex. He exhibits an almost chivalrous devotion to their cause, and takes great pleasure in serving them. Any little commission with which they may please to honour him, he executes with alacrity, and his own expression is that he would “jump Tweed, or dive the Wheel (a deep eddy in Tweed), for their sakes.” He requires no reward for his services, but, like a true knight, begs only to kiss the hand of his fair employer, and is satisfied. It may be observed, that he is at all times fond of saluting the hands of ladies that will permit him.
The author of “Waverley” has described Davie Gellatley as dressed in a grey jerkin, with scarlet cuffs, and slashed sleeves, showing a scarlet lining, a livery with which the Baron of Bradwardine indued him, in consideration of his services and character. Daft Jock Grey has at no period of his life exhibited so much personal magnificence. His usual dress is a rather shabby suit of hodden grey, with ridge and furrow[1] stockings; and the utmost extent of his finery is a pair of broad red garters, bound neatly below the knee-strings of his nether garments, of which, however, he is probably more vain than ever belted knight was of the royal garter. But waiving the matter of dress, their discrepance in which is purely accidental, the resemblance is complete in every other respect. The face, mien, and gestures are exactly the same. Jock walks with all that swing of the body and arms, that abstracted air and sauntering pace, which figure in the description of Davie (“Waverley,” vol i. chap. ix.), and which, it may indeed be said, are peculiar to the whole genus and body of Scottish madmen. Jock’s face is equally handsome in its outline with that given to the fool of Tully-Veolan, and is no less distinguished by “that wild, unsettled, and irregular expression, which indicated neither idiocy nor insanity, but something resembling a compound of both, where the simplicity of the fool was mixed with the extravagance of a crazed imagination.” Add to this happy picture the prosaic and somewhat unromantic circumstance of a pair of buck-teeth, and the reader has our friend Jock to a single feature.