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  But even in a rude Scottish glen thirty years back, the fear of sorcery was very much out of date.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.  David was never affectionate to her; it was not in his nature; but he endured her.  He maintained himself and her by the sale of the product of their garden and bee-hives; and, latterly, they had a small allowance from the parish.  Indeed, in the simple and patriarchal state in which the country then was, persons in the situation of David and his sister were sure to be supported.  They had only to apply to the next gentleman or respectable farmer, and were sure to find them equally ready and willing to supply their very moderate wants.  David often received gratuities from strangers, which he never asked, never refused, and never seemed to consider as an obligation.  He had a right, indeed, to