第5章 INTRODUCTION to THE BLACK DWARF(2)

"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 PARADISELOST.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 concourse of spectators, to whom he must have exposed his unseemly deformity.He spoke of a future state with intense feeling, and even with tears.He expressed disgust at the idea, of his remains being mixed with the common rubbish, as he called it, of the churchyard, and selected with his usual taste a beautiful and wild spot in the glen where he had his hermitage, in which to take his last repose.He changed his mind, however, and was finally interred in the common burial-ground of Manor parish.

The author has invested Wise Elshie with some qualities which made him appear, in the eyes of the vulgar, a man possessed of supernatural power.Common fame paid David Ritchie a similar compliment, for some of the poor and ignorant, as well as all the children, in the neighbourhood, held him to be what is called uncanny.He himself did not altogether discourage the idea; it enlarged his very limited circle of power, and in so far gratified his conceit; and it soothed his misanthropy, by increasing his means of giving terror or pain.But even in a rude Scottish glen thirty years back, the fear of sorcery was very much out of date.

David Ritchie affected to frequent solitary scenes, especially such as were supposed to be haunted, and valued himself upon his courage in doing so.To be sure he had little chance of meeting anything more ugly than himself.At heart, he was superstitious, and planted many rowans (mountain ashes) around his hut, as a certain defence against necromancy.For the same reason, doubtless, he desired to have rowan-trees set above his grave.

We have stated that David Ritchie loved objects of natural beauty.His only living favourites were a dog and a cat, to which he was particularly attached, and his bees, which he treated with great care.He took a sister, latterly, to live in a hut adjacent to his own, but he did not permit her to enter it.

She was weak in intellect, but not deformed in person; simple, or rather silly, but not, like her brother, sullen or bizarre.