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,