—The Gaberlunzie-man.
AS the self-exiled Eustace pursued his route, in troubled reverie, he was soon hailed by a masculine voice from a straggling thicket near the wayside. Glancing in that direction, he saw a man issue from among the trees, and step towards him. The man was in the humble garb of a gaberlunzie, and seemed a fair representative of the trade of mendicancy, which was numerously followed throughout the country in that age, and for ages afterwards. At a little distance he looked rather youngish; but on nearer approach he was seen to be elderly, perhaps about his grand climacteric. He was tall, spare, and erect of figure, lithe of limb, and with a shrewd, honest, weather-beaten, but unwrinkled countenance, and short, iron-grey locks appearing from under his broad blue bonnet. A wallet was slung at his back, and a leathern pouch or purse at the side of his waist-belt, in which was stuck a sheathed whinger, and he carried a stout kent or long staff with an iron spike at the end, which would prove a formidable weapon when wielded in a fray by a strong hand. Eustace stopped, and was saluted by the stranger, who doffed his bonnet and bowed low. Understanding that the man’s object was the solicitation of charity, Eustace gave him an alms which was received with effusive thanks, and dropped into the pouch.
“You’ll be gaun the Greenholm way, master?” said the stranger, deferentially.
“I am. But no farther than the village for the night.”
“Weel, master, I’m just gaun the same gate: and aiblins you winna be offended though a gaberlunzie should jog at your heels?”
Eustace looked at him, with a complacent smile, without replying to the question; but the smile seemed to be intended and accepted as a negative reply. They went on together, side by side.
“It’s a braw and bonnie nicht,” said the beggar, surveying the surrounding scenery with a gratified eye, and pointing here and there with his staff. “A braw May nicht indeed. Look to the lift—look to the earth—there’s beauty owre a’. See—the parting beams o’ the sun linger on the bald, rocky brow o’ yon hill, like a crown o’ glory, while a’ the dell aneath is losing itsel’ in the shadow, and the haze is rising that will soon ha’e the appearance o’ a loch. You hear the sweet sangs o’ the birds, the sough o’ the westland wind, and the everlasting plash o’ yon burnie that gushes owre its linn. The gowden clouds are sailing solemnly as if to strains o’ angel-music. How pleasant to wander, free as air, amang Nature’s charms!”
“It is so,” said Eustace, surprised at the elevation of the beggar’s tone. “But life passes through gloom and storm as well as through sunshine. We have our flowery May, and we have our wintry December. In some deep cleugh among the hills patches of last December’s snow will still be lying.”
“Ay, truly,” returned the mendicant, glancing keenly at the youth. “And, if I may presume, you seem to me, frae your words, to ha’e borne the brunt o’ a stormy fortune, though you’re o’ gentle rank, and in the morning o’ life, and no a grey carle like me, wha has warsled wi’ the warld sae lang an’ sair.”