The poor simpleton showed himself from among the ruins of a sort of greenhouse, that once terminated what was called the terrace-walk, but at first sight of a stranger retreated, as if in terror.  Waverley, remembering his habits, began to whistle a tune to which he was partial, which Davie had expressed great pleasure in listening to, and had picked up from him by the ear.  Our hero’s minstrelsy no more equalled that of Blondel than poor Davie resembled Coeur de Lion; but the melody had the same effect of producing recognition.  Davie again stole from his lurking-place, but timidly, while Waverley, afraid of frightening him, stood making the most encouraging signals he could devise.  ’It’s his ghaist,’ muttered Davie; yet, coming nearer, he seemed to acknowledge his living acquaintance.  The poor fool himself appeared the ghost of what he had been.  The peculiar dress in which he had been attired in better days showed only miserable rags of its whimsical finery, the lack of which was oddly supplied by the remnants of tapestried hangings, window-curtains, and shreds of pictures with which he had bedizened his tatters.  His face, too, had lost its vacant and careless air, and the poor creature looked hollow-eyed, meagre, half-starved, and nervous to a pitiable degree.  After long hesitation, he at length approached Waverley with some confidence, stared him sadly in the face, and said, ‘A’ dead and gane—­a’ dead and gane.’

‘Who are dead?’ said Waverley, forgetting the incapacity of Davie to hold any connected discourse.

’Baron, and Bailie, and Saunders Saunderson, and Lady Rose that sang sae sweet—­a’ dead and gane—­dead and gane;

    But follow, follow me,
    While glowworms light the lea,
    I’ll show ye where the dead should be—­
      Each in his shroud,
      While winds pipe loud,
      And the red moon peeps dim through the cloud. 
    Follow, follow me;
    Brave should he be
    That treads by night the dead man’s lea.’

With these words, chanted in a wild and earnest tone, he made a sign to Waverley to follow him, and walked rapidly towards the bottom of the garden, tracing the bank of the stream which, it may be remembered, was its eastern boundary.  Edward, over whom an involuntary shuddering stole at the import of his words, followed him in some hope of an explanation.  As the house was evidently deserted, he could not expect to find among the ruins any more rational informer.

Davie, walking very fast, soon reached the extremity of the garden, and scrambled over the ruins of the wall that once had divided it from the wooded glen in which the old tower of Tully-Veolan was situated.  He then jumped down into the bed of the stream, and, followed by Waverley, proceeded at a great pace, climbing over some fragments of rock and turning with difficulty round others.  They passed beneath the ruins of the castle; Waverley followed, keeping up with his