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?'
'I believe not,' she replied. 'This poor creature had a brother, and
Heaven, as if to compensate to the family Davie's deficiencies, had given
him what the hamlet thought uncommon talents. An uncle contrived to
educate him for the Scottish kirk, but he could not get preferment
because he came from our GROUND. He returned from college hopeless and
brokenhearted, and fell into a decline. My father supported him till his
death, which happened before he was nineteen. He played beautifully on
the flute, and was supposed to have a great turn for poetry. He was
affectionate and compassionate to his brother, who followed him like his
shadow, and we think that from him Davie gathered many fragments of songs
and music unlike those of this country. But if we ask him where he got
such a fragment as he is now singing, he either answers with wild and
long fits of laughter, or else breaks into tears of lamentation; but was
never heard to give any explanation, or to mention his brother's name
since his death.
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