 equal to that of
either the red or fallow deer.23 But he will serve to show how my dogs run; and
therefore they shall attend us with Davie Gellatley.«
    Waverley expressed his suprise that his friend Davie was capable of such
trust; but the Baron gave him to understand that this poor simpleton was neither
fatuous nec naturaliter idiota, as is expressed in the brieves of furiosity, but
simply a crackbrained knave, who could execute very well any commission which
jumped with his own humour, and made his folly a plea for avoiding every other.
»He has made an interest with us,« continued the Baron, »by saving Rose from a
great danger with his own proper peril; and the roguish loon must therefore eat
of our bread and drink of our cup, and do what he can, or what he will; which,
if the suspicions of Saunderson and the Bailie are well founded, may perchance
in his case be commensurate terms.«
    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 farther 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
