“He’s a real auld bachelor in his way of leevin’. He maks and mends his ain claes too, clouts his ain shoon, darns his ain stockings, and keeps a lot o’ tools for a’ crafts. His kitchen’s a no-that-ill-red-up place; but if ye saw his study, sir, as he ca’s’t, it’s the queerest, higgledy-piggledy, odds-and-ends sort o’ place ye ever saw in your life. It’s eneugh to turn your brain just to look intil’t. His pianoforte and his tables a’ covered wi’ a confused heap o’ books, writings, musical instruments, colours, oil-paintings, and loose fragments o’ rough designs, made wi’ black and white caulk on a nankeen-coloured kind o’ paper. The wa’ is stuck fu’ o’ brass-headed nails that he hings his follies and his nonsense on. He has a muckle ill-faured image yonder, that he ca’s an Indian god, standing on his mantelpiece, wi’ lang teeth made o’ fish-banes, and twa round bits o’ white airn, with big black-headed tackets driven through the middle o’ them for een, and a queer crown on its head, made o’ split quills, plait strae, and peacocks’ feathers. It’s eneugh to gar a body a’ grue just to look at it. He has bears’ and teegers’ heads girnin’ on the wa’, and slouched hats, swords, dirks, and rusty rapiers o’ every kind. He has twa or three things yonder that he ca’s Roman helmets (though the maist o’ folk would reckon them nae ither than barbers’ basins), forby some imitations o’ auld coats o’ mail, made o’ painted pasteboard. Na, faith, the deil hae me,” continued Duncan, laughing at the whimsical character of the place he was describing, “if I dinna whiles think the body’s out o’ his wits. But he canna be that, either, for they’re great folks ca’ing upon him, baith far and near, and he cracks to them whiles in strange tongues, that nane in the kintra-side kens but himsel and the minister. Na, troth, sir, they say that our Mess John, wha’s no a lame hand himsel, is just a bairn to him. ’Od he’s a droll, ready-handed body. He maks a’thing himsel. He has some orra time on his hand, ye see; and he’s either crooning ower some auld Scotch songs, or fiddling some outlandish tunes; and, my faith! he can twine them out frae the grist o’ a common strae-rape to the fineness o’ a windle-strae. He shakes and dirls sae wonderfully too, that ye wad think his fiddle’s no a thing o’ timmer and catgut at a’, but some droll musical creature o’ flesh and blood. Eh, my certie! it gars a body’s bowels a’ tremble wi’ gladness whiles to hear him. He’ll come in here at an antrin time, ca’ for his gill o’ gin, and no a living creature wi’ him, and sit ower’t for twa or three hours, crackin’ to himsel, and laughin’ as loudly and heartily at his ain queer stories, as if he had a dizzen o’ merry cronies at his elbow. He ne’er forgets when he’s takin’ his drams to wish himsel weel; for at every sip, he says, ‘Here’s to ye, Simon—thanks to ye, Mr Gray;’ and so on he goes the whole night, as if he were a kind of a twafauld body. Ae night when he sat in my back-room and loosed his budget of jokes, and laughed and roared wi’ himsel for twa hours, I laid my lug to the key-hole o’ the door, and owerheard the following dialogue.”
At this part of mine host’s narrative the rattling of a wheeled vehicle was heard, and ceased immediately upon reaching the door of the inn. Mr Cleekum, the village lawyer, had come in a few minutes before, and was sitting beside us, laughing at M‘Gowan’s narrative, of the latter part of which he also had been an auditory witness. M‘Gowan’s loquacity ceased when he heard the vehicle at the door; he looked out at the window, turned round to me, and said hastily, “Maister Cleekum ’ll tell ye a’ about it, sir,—he heard it as weel as me.—Excuse me, there’s a gig at the door. We maun mind our ain shop, ye ken, and a rider’s penny’s worth a gangrel’s groat ony day.”
So saying, he hurried out, leaving the lawyer to gratify my curiosity by the sequel of the dominie’s solitary dialogue.
“M‘Gowan’s description, sir, of this eccentric being is by no means exaggerated,” said Mr Cleekum; “and if it can afford you any amusement, I shall relate the remainder of Mr Gray’s dialogue, which I am the better enabled to do, from having put myself to the trouble of noting down the particulars, at the recital of which old Simon and myself have since laughed very heartily. You need not be surprised at his broad Scotch accent; he has such a decided partiality for it, that he is commonly averse to using any other tongue, though no man speaks more politely than himself when he is so disposed, and when the persons he converses with render it necessary.—After having finished his first measure of indulgence, Mr Gray proceeded thus:—
“‘Come now, Sir Simon, and I’ll help ye hame, ye auld rogue.—I am much obliged to you, Mr Gray, but I’ll try to gar my ain shanks serve my ain turn, and ye may e’en put your ain hand to your ain hasp, my friend.—If ye like, we’ll have anither gill, and then toddle thegither.—Beware o’ dram-drinking, Sir Simon; ye’ll get an evil name in the clachan.—I beg your pardon, Mr Gray; I have been a riddle to the folks ower lang already, and as I ne’er do aucht in a corner, but what I may do on the causey, everybody kens he’ll no mak onything mair or less o’ me by being inquisitive. Na, na, Mr Gray, ye’re a’ out there; there is no ane in the parish would hear an ill word o’ Simon.—But ye’re an auld man, sir, and set an evil example to others.—Ne’er a ane do I set an evil example to but yoursel, Mr Gray; and for a’ your cant about sobriety, ye take your drams as regularly as I do; and I defy you—I defy you or ony other man to say ye e’er saw me the waur o’ liquor in your life. Besides, Mr Gray, the progress of human life is like a journey from the equator to the north pole. We commence our career with the heat of passion and the light of hope, and travel on, till passion is quenched by indulgence, and hope, flying round the ball of life which is blackening before us, seems to come up behind us, mingled with dim and regretted reminiscences of things hoped for, obtained, enjoyed, and lost for ever but to memory:
Oh! age has weary days,
And nights of sleepless pain.
Youth needs no stimulus, it is too hot already; but when a man is shuffling forward into the Arctic circle of old age, he requires a warm potation to thaw the icicles that crust around his heart, and freeze up the streams of his affections. There’s for you, Mr Gray; what do you think of that?—Why, I think, Sir Simon, we’ll tell Duncan to fill’t again.—That now, that now, is friendly;’ and so saying, he rung for the landlord to fetch him the means of prolonging his solitary conviviality.
“This is that portion of Mr Gray’s dialogue with himself which M‘Gowan and myself, perhaps officiously, listened to; but as we are upon the subject of our venerable friend’s peculiarities, it may not be out of place to recite a little poetical work, which he composed some time ago.” Having signified the pleasure I should derive from being favoured with the recital of a work from the pen of so eccentric a humorist as the dominie, Mr Cleekum proceeded to draw forth from his pocket and to read:—