Miss Bradwardine then gave Waverley to understand, that this poor simpleton was doatingly fond of music, deeply affected by that which was melancholy, and transported into extravagant gaiety by light and lively airs.  He had in this respect a prodigious memory, stored with miscellaneous snatches and fragments of all tunes and songs, which he sometimes applied, with considerable address, as the vehicles of remonstrance, explanation, or satire.  Davie was much attached to the few who showed him kindness; and both aware of any slight or ill usage which he happened to receive, and sufficiently apt, where he saw opportunity, to revenge it.  The common people, who often judge hardly of each other, as well as of their betters, although they had expressed great compassion for the poor innocent while suffered to wander in rags about the village, no sooner beheld him decently clothed, provided for, and even a sort of favourite, than they called up all the instances of sharpness and ingenuity, in action and repartee, which his annals afforded, and charitably bottomed thereupon a hypothesis, that Davie Gellatley was no further fool than was necessary to avoid hard labour.  This opinion was not better founded than that of the Negroes, who, from the acute and mischievous pranks of the monkeys, suppose that they have the gift of speech, and only suppress their powers of elocution to escape being set to work.  But the hypothesis was entirely imaginary:  Davie Gellatley was in good earnest the half-crazed simpleton which he appeared, and was incapable of any constant and steady exertion.  He had just so much solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity; so much wild wit as saved him from the imputation of idiocy; some dexterity in field sports (in which we have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in the treatment of animals entrusted to him, warm affections, a prodigious memory, and an ear for music.

The stamping of horses was now heard in the court, and Davie’s voice singing to the two large deer greyhounds,—­

     Hie away, hie away,
     Over bank and over brae,
     Where the copsewood is the greenest,
     Where the fountains glisten sheenest,
     Where the lady-fern grows strongest,
     Where the morning dew lies longest,
     Where the black-cock sweetest sips it,
     Where the fairy latest trips it: 
     Hie to haunts right seldom seen,
     Lovely, lonesome, cool, and green,
     Over bank and over brae,
     Hie away, hie away.

‘Do the verses he sings,’ asked Waverley, ’belong to old Scottish poetry, Miss Bradwardine?’