The Black Dwarf(黑侏儒)

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THE BLACK DWARF

Walter Scott, Bart.

THE BLACK DWARF

I. TALES OF MY LANDLORD

COLLECTED AND REPORTED BY JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM,

SCHOOLMASTER AND PARISH-CLERK OF GANDERCLEUGH.

INTRODUCTION.

As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and official

description prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate and

reflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to

address myself, such attention as is due to the sedulous instructor of youth,

and the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will forbear to hold up a

candle to the daylight, or to point out to the judicious those

recommendations of my labours which they must necessarily anticipate

from the perusal of the title-page. Nevertheless, I am not unaware, that,

as Envy always dogs Merit at the heels, there may be those who will

whisper, that albeit my learning and good principles cannot (lauded be the

heavens) be denied by any one, yet that my situation at Gandercleugh hath

been more favourable to my acquisitions in learning than to the

enlargement of my views of the ways and works of the present generation.

To the which objection, if, peradventure, any such shall be started, my

answer shall be threefold:

First, Gandercleugh is, as it were, the central part--the navel (SI FAS

SIT DICERE) of this our native realm of Scotland; so that men, from

every corner thereof, when travelling on their concernments of business,

either towards our metropolis of law, by which I mean Edinburgh, or

towards our metropolis and mart of gain, whereby I insinuate Glasgow, are

frequently led to make Gandercleugh their abiding stage and place of rest

for the night. And it must be acknowledged by the most sceptical, that I,

who have sat in the leathern armchair, on the left-hand side of the fire, in

the common room of the Wallace Inn, winter and summer, for every

evening in my life, during forty years bypast (the Christian Sabbaths only

excepted), must have seen more of the manners and customs of various

tribes and people, than if I had sought them out by my own painful travel

and bodily labour. Even so doth the tollman at the well-frequented turn-

THE BLACK DWARF

pike on the Wellbraehead, sitting at his ease in his own dwelling, gather

more receipt of custom, than if, moving forth upon the road, he were to

require a contribution from each person whom he chanced to meet in his

journey, when, according to the vulgar adage, he might possibly be greeted

with more kicks than halfpence.

But, secondly, supposing it again urged, that Ithacus, the most wise of

the Greeks, acquired his renown, as the Roman poet hath assured us, by

visiting states and men, I reply to the Zoilus who shall adhere to this

objection, that, DE FACTO, I have seen states and men also; for I have

visited the famous cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the former twice, and

the latter three times, in the course of my earthly pilgrimage. And,

moreover, I had the honour to sit in the General Assembly (meaning, as an

auditor, in the galleries thereof), and have heard as much goodly speaking

on the law of patronage, as, with the fructification thereof in mine own

understanding, hath made me be considered as an oracle upon that

doctrine ever since my safe and happy return to Gandercleugh.

Again--and thirdly, If it be nevertheless pretended that my information

and knowledge of mankind, however extensive, and however painfully

acquired, by constant domestic enquiry, and by foreign travel, is, natheless,

incompetent to the task of recording the pleasant narratives of my

Landlord, I will let these critics know, to their own eternal shame and

confusion as well as to the abashment and discomfiture of all who shall

rashly take up a song against me, that I am NOT the writer, redacter, or

compiler, of the Tales of my Landlord; nor am I, in one single iota,

answerable for their contents, more or less. And now, ye generation of

critics, who raise yourselves up as if it were brazen serpents, to hiss with

your tongues, and to smite with your stings, bow yourselves down to your

native dust, and acknowledge that yours have been the thoughts of

ignorance, and the words of vain foolishness. Lo! ye are caught in your

own snare, and your own pit hath yawned for you. Turn, then, aside from

the task that is too heavy for you; destroy not your teeth by gnawing a file;

waste not your strength by spurning against a castle wall; nor spend your

breath in contending in swiftness with a fleet steed; and let those weigh

the Tales of my Landlord, who shall bring with them the scales of candour

THE BLACK DWARF

cleansed from the rust of prejudice by the hands of intelligent modesty.

For these alone they were compiled, as will appear from a brief narrative

which my zeal for truth compelled me to make supplementary to the

present Proem.

It is well known that my Landlord was a pleasing and a facetious man,

acceptable unto all the parish of Gandercleugh, excepting only the Laird,

the Exciseman, and those for whom he refused to draw liquor upon trust.

Their causes of dislike I will touch separately, adding my own refutation

thereof.

His honour, the Laird, accused our Landlord, deceased, of having

encouraged, in various times and places, the destruction of hares, rabbits,

fowls black and grey, partridges, moor-pouts, roe-deer, and other birds and

quadrupeds, at unlawful seasons, and contrary to the laws of this realm,

which have secured, in their wisdom, the slaughter of such animals for the

great of the earth, whom I have remarked to take an uncommon (though to

me, an unintelligible) pleasure therein. Now, in humble deference to his

honour, and in justifiable defence of my friend deceased, I reply to this

charge, that howsoever the form of such animals might appear to be

similar to those so protected by the law, yet it was a mere DECEPTIO

VISUS; for what resembled hares were, in fact, HILL-KIDS, and those

partaking of the appearance of moor- fowl, were truly WOOD PIGEONS

and consumed and eaten EO NOMINE, and not otherwise.

Again, the Exciseman pretended, that my deceased Landlord did

encourage that species of manufacture called distillation, without having

an especial permission from the Great, technically called a license, for

doing so. Now, I stand up to confront this falsehood; and in defiance of

him, his gauging-stick, and pen and inkhorn, I tell him, that I never saw, or

tasted, a glass of unlawful aqua vitae in the house of my Landlord; nay,

that, on the contrary, we needed not such devices, in respect of a pleasing

and somewhat seductive liquor, which was vended and consumed at the

Wallace Inn, under the name of MOUNTAIN DEW. If there is a penalty

against manufacturing such a liquor, let him show me the statute; and

when he does, I'll tell him if I will obey it or no.

Concerning those who came to my Landlord for liquor, and went

THE BLACK DWARF

thirsty away, for lack of present coin, or future credit, I cannot but say it

has grieved my bowels as if the case had been mine own. Nevertheless,

my Landlord considered the necessities of a thirsty soul, and would permit

them, in extreme need, and when their soul was impoverished for lack of

moisture, to drink to the full value of their watches and wearing apparel,

exclusively of their inferior habiliments, which he was uniformly

inexorable in obliging them to retain, for the credit of the house. As to

mine own part, I may well say, that he never refused me that modicum of

refreshment with which I am wont to recruit nature after the fatigues of

my school. It is true, I taught his five sons English and Latin, writing,

book-keeping, with a tincture of mathematics, and that I instructed his

daughter in psalmody. Nor do I remember me of any fee or

HONORARIUM received from him on account of these my labours,

except the compotations aforesaid. Nevertheless this compensation

suited my humour well, since it is a hard sentence to bid a dry throat wait

till quarter-day.

But, truly, were I to speak my simple conceit and belief, I think my

Landlord was chiefly moved to waive in my behalf the usual requisition of

a symbol, or reckoning, from the pleasure he was wont to take in my

conversation, which, though solid and edifying in the main, was, like a

well-built palace, decorated with facetious narratives and devices, tending

much to the enhancement and ornament thereof. And so pleased was my

Landlord of the Wallace in his replies during such colloquies, that there

was no district in Scotland, yea, and no peculiar, and, as it were,

distinctive custom therein practised, but was discussed betwixt us;

insomuch, that those who stood by were wont to say, it was worth a bottle

of ale to hear us communicate with each other. And not a few travellers,

from distant parts, as well as from the remote districts of our kingdom,

were wont to mingle in the conversation, and to tell news that had been

gathered in foreign lands, or preserved from oblivion in this our own.

Now I chanced to have contracted for teaching the lower classes with a

young person called Peter, or Patrick, Pattieson, who had been educated

for our Holy Kirk, yea, had, by the license of presbytery, his voice opened

therein as a preacher, who delighted in the collection of olden tales and

THE BLACK DWARF

legends, and in garnishing them with the flowers of poesy, whereof he was

a vain and frivolous professor. For he followed not the example of those

strong poets whom I preposed to him as a pattern, but formed versification

of a flimsy and modern texture, to the compounding whereof was

necessary small pains and less thought. And hence I have chid him as

being one of those who bring forward the fatal revolution prophesied by

Mr. Robert Carey, in his Vaticination on the Death of the celebrated Dr.

John Donne:

Now thou art gone, and thy strict laws will be Too hard for

libertines in poetry; Till verse (by thee refined) in this last age Turn

ballad rhyme.

I had also disputations with him touching his indulging rather a

flowing and redundant than a concise and stately diction in his prose

exercitations. But notwithstanding these symptoms of inferior taste, and

a humour of contradicting his betters upon passages of dubious

construction in Latin authors, I did grievously lament when Peter Pattieson

was removed from me by death, even as if he had been the offspring of my

own loins. And in respect his papers had been left in my care (to answer

funeral and death-bed expenses), I conceived myself entitled to dispose of

one parcel thereof, entitled, "Tales of my Landlord," to one cunning in the

trade (as it is called) of bookselling. He was a mirthful man, of small

stature, cunning in counterfeiting of voices, and in making facetious tales

and responses, and whom I have to laud for the truth of his dealings

towards me.

Now, therefore, the world may see the injustice that charges me with

incapacity to write these narratives, seeing, that though I have proved that

I could have written them if I would, yet, not having done so, the censure

will deservedly fall, if at all due, upon the memory of Mr. Peter Pattieson;

whereas I must be justly entitled to the praise, when any is due, seeing that,

as the Dean of St. Patrick's wittily and logically expresseth it,

That without which a thing is not, Is CAUSA SINE QUA NON.

The work, therefore, is unto me as a child is to a parent; in the which

child, if it proveth worthy, the parent hath honour and praise; but, if

otherwise, the disgrace will deservedly attach to itself alone.

THE BLACK DWARF

I have only further to intimate, that Mr. Peter Pattieson, in arranging

these Tales for the press, hath more consulted his own fancy than the

accuracy of the narrative; nay, that he hath sometimes blended two or

three stories together for the mere grace of his plots. Of which infidelity,

although I disapprove and enter my testimony against it, yet I have not

taken upon me to correct the same, in respect it was the will of the

deceased, that his manuscript should be submitted to the press without

diminution or alteration. A fanciful nicety it was on the part of my

deceased friend, who, if thinking wisely, ought rather to have conjured me,

by all the tender ties of our friendship and common pursuits, to have

carefully revised, altered, and augmented, at my judgment and discretion.

But the will of the dead must be scrupulously obeyed, even when we weep

over their pertinacity and self-delusion. So, gentle reader, I bid you

farewell, recommending you to such fare as the mountains of your own

country produce; and I will only farther premise, that each Tale is

preceded by a short introduction, mentioning the persons by whom, and

the circumstances under which, the materials thereof were collected.

JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM.

II. INTRODUCTION to THE

BLACK DWARF.

The ideal being who is here presented as residing in solitude, and

haunted by a consciousness of his own deformity, and a suspicion of his

being generally subjected to the scorn of his fellow-men, is not altogether

imaginary. An individual existed many years since, under the author's

observation, which suggested such a character. This poor unfortunate

man's name was David Ritchie, a native of Tweeddale. He was the son

of a labourer in the slate-quarries of Stobo, and must have been born in the

misshapen form which he exhibited, though he sometimes imputed it to

ill-usage when in infancy. He was bred a brush-maker at Edinburgh, and

had wandered to several places, working at his trade, from all which he

was chased by the disagreeable attention which his hideous singularity of

THE BLACK DWARF

form and face attracted wherever he came. The author understood him to

say he had even been in Dublin.

Tired at length of being the object of shouts, laughter, and derision,

David Ritchie resolved, like a deer hunted from the herd, to retreat to

some wilderness, where he might have the least possible communication

with the world which scoffed at him. He settled himself, with this view,

upon a patch of wild moorland at the bottom of a bank on the farm of

Woodhouse, in the sequestered vale of the small river Manor, in

Peeblesshire. The few people who had occasion to pass that way were

much surprised, and some superstitious persons a little alarmed, to see so

strange a figure as Bow'd Davie (i.e. Crooked David) employed in a task,

for which he seemed so totally unfit, as that of erecting a house. The

cottage which he built was extremely small, but the walls, as well as those

of a little garden that surrounded it, were constructed with an ambitious

degree of solidity, being composed of layers of large stones and turf; and

some of the corner stones were so weighty, as to puzzle the spectators how

such a person as the architect could possibly have raised them. In fact,

David received from passengers, or those who came attracted by curiosity,

a good deal of assistance; and as no one knew how much aid had been

given by others, the wonder of each individual remained undiminished.

The proprietor of the ground, the late Sir James Naesmith, baronet,

chanced to pass this singular dwelling, which, having been placed there

without right or leave asked or given, formed an exact parallel with

Falstaff's simile of a "fair house built on another's ground;" so that poor

David might have lost his edifice by mistaking the property where he had

erected it. Of course, the proprietor entertained no idea of exacting such

a forfeiture, but readily sanctioned the harmless encroachment.

The personal description of Elshender of Mucklestane-Moor has been

generally allowed to be a tolerably exact and unexaggerated portrait of

David of Manor Water. He was not quite three feet and a half high, since

he could stand upright in the door of his mansion, which was just that

height. The following particulars concerning his figure and temper occur

in the SCOTS MAGAZINE for 1817, and are now understood to have

been communicated by the ingenious Mr. Robert Chambers of Edinburgh,

THE BLACK DWARF

who has recorded with much spirit the traditions of the Good Town, and,

in other publications, largely and agreeably added to the stock of our

popular antiquities. He is the countryman of David Ritchie, and had the

best access to collect anecdotes of him.

"His skull," says this authority, "which was of an oblong and rather

unusual shape, was said to be of such strength, that he could strike it with

ease through the panel of a door, or the end of a barrel. His laugh is said

to have been quite horrible; and his screech-owl voice, shrill, uncouth, and

dissonant, corresponded well with his other peculiarities.

"There was nothing very uncommon about his dress. He usually

wore an old slouched hat when he went abroad; and when at home, a sort

of cowl or night-cap. He never wore shoes, being unable to adapt them

to his mis-shapen finlike feet, but always had both feet and legs quite

concealed, and wrapt up with pieces of cloth. He always walked with a

sort of pole or pike-staff, considerably taller than himself. His habits

were, in many respects, singular, and indicated a mind congenial to its

uncouth tabernacle. A jealous, misanthropical, and irritable temper, was

his 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 points

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 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

THE BLACK DWARF

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

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