The Witches of Traquair and Other Tales from Scottish Highlands by James Hogg

Author:James Hogg [Hogg, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788075836052
Publisher: Musaicum Press
Published: 2017-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

The Marvellous Doctor

Table of Contents

When my parents lived in the old Manse of Ettrick, which they did for a number of years, an old grey-headed man came one summer and lived with them nearly a whole half year, paying my mother at the rate of ten shillings a-month for bed, board, and washing. He was a mysterious being, and no one knew who he was, or what he was; but all the neighbourhood reckoned him "uncanny;" which in that part of the country means, a warlock, or one some way conversant with beings of another nature.

I remember him well; he was a tall ungainly figure, dressed in a long black coat, the longest and the narrowest coat I ever saw; his vest was something like blue velvet, and his breeches of leather, buckled with silver knee-buckles. He wore always white thread stockings, and as his breeches came exactly to the knap of the knee, his legs appeared so long and thin that it was a marvel to me how they carried him. Take in black spats, and a very narrow-brimmed hat, and you have the figure complete; any painter might take his likeness, provided he did not make him too straight in the back, which would never answer, as his formed the segment of a great circle. He was a doctor; but whether of law, medicine, or divinity, I never learned; perhaps of them all, for a doctor he certainly was—we called him so, and never knew him by any other name; some, indeed, called him the Lying Doctor, some the Herb Doctor, and some the Warlock Doctor; but my mother, behind his back, called him always T HE MARVELLOUS DOCTOR, which I have chosen to retain, as the one about whose accuracy there can be no dispute.

His whole occupation was in gathering flowers and herbs, and arranging them; and, as he picked a number of these out of the churchyard, the old wives in the vicinity grew terribly jealous of him. He seemed, by his own account, to have been over the whole world, on what business or in what capacity he never mentioned; but from his stories of himself, and of his wonderful feats, one might have concluded that he had been every thing. I remember a number of these stories quite distinctly, for at that time I believed them all for perfect truth, though I have been since led to suspect that it was scarcely consistent with nature or reason they could be so. One or two of these tales I shall here relate, but with this great disadvantage, that I have, in many in stances, forgot the names of the places where they happened. I knew nothing about geography then, or where the places were, and the faint recollection I have of them will only, I fear, tend to confuse my narrative the more.

One day, while he was very busy arranging his flowers and herbs, and constantly speaking to himself,

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