Waverley began to despair of gaining entrance into this solitary and seemingly enchanted mansion, when a man advanced up one of the garden alleys, where he still retained his station.  Trusting this might be a gardener, or some domestic belonging to the house, Edward descended the steps in order to meet him; but as the figure approached, and long before he could descry its features, he was struck with the oddity of its appearance and gestures.—­Sometimes this mister wight held his hands clasped over his head, like an Indian Jogue in the attitude of penance; sometimes he swung them perpendicularly, like a pendulum, on each side; and anon he slapped them swiftly and repeatedly across his breast, like the substitute used by a hackney-coachman for his usual flogging exercise, when his cattle are idle upon the stand in a clear frosty day.  His gait was as singular as his gestures, for at times he hopped with great perseverance on the right foot, then exchanged that supporter to advance in the same manner on the left, and then putting his feet close together, he hopped upon both at once.  His attire, also, was antiquated and extravagant.  It consisted in a sort of grey jerkin, with scarlet cuffs and slashed sleeves, showing a scarlet lining; the other parts of the dress corresponded in colour, not forgetting a pair of scarlet stockings, and a scarlet bonnet, proudly surmounted with a turkey’s feather.  Edward, whom he did not seem to observe, now perceived confirmation in his features of what the mien and gestures had already announced.  It was apparently neither idiocy nor insanity which gave that wild, unsettled, irregular expression to a face which naturally was rather handsome, but something that resembled a compound of both, where the simplicity of the fool was mixed with the extravagance of a crazed imagination.  He sang with great earnestness, and not without some taste, a fragment of an old Scottish ditty:—­

     False love, and hast thou played me thus
     In summer among the flowers? 
     I will repay thee back again
     In winter among the showers. 
     Unless again, again, my love,
     Unless you turn again;
     As you with other maidens rove,
     I’ll smile on other men.

[This is a genuine ancient fragment, with some alteration in the last two lines.]

Here lifting up his eyes, which had hither&o been fixed in observing how his feet kept time to the tune, he beheld Waverley, and instantly doffed his cap, with many grotesque signals of surprise, respect, and salutation.  Edward, though with little hope of receiving an answer to any constant question, requested to know whether Mr. Bradwardine were at home, or where he could find any of the domestics.  The questioned party replied,—­and, like the witch of Thalaba, ’still his speech was song,’—­

     The Knight’s to the mountain
     His bugle to wind;
     The Lady’s to greenwood
     Her garland to bind. 
     The bower of Burd Ellen
     Has moss on the floor,
     That the step of Lord William
     Be silent and sure.