Spare Hours

If the account I have thus given of the connection between St. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” and the visions or revelations with which he was favored, be the correct one, we are now furnished with the means of explaining a somewhat obscure expression in the 14th verse of the fourth chapter of Galatians, to which I promised to return: “And my trial which was in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected.” If we are compelled to abide by the belief, that St. Paul’s “trial” was merely some bodily affliction of the ordinary kind, we can understand the meaning of his saying that the Galatians did not “despise” it (although, by the way, it seems rather a microscopic basis on which to found a laudation of a body of Christian men and women, to say that they were so good as not to despise him on account of a natural bodily infirmity), but it is impossible, on this assumption, to attach any consistent sense to the word “rejected.” It has, therefore, been taken as simply synonymous with “despise,” an interpretation which is objectionable, both because it is at variance with the well-ascertained meaning of the Greek word ἐξεπτύσατε (spit out, not spit at), and also because it involves the imputation of needless tautology to St. Paul’s language, from which, almost more than from any other fault of style, the whole of his writings prove him to be singularly free. But if my explanation of the nature of the apostle’s trial be the true one, every word of the sentence has a clear and intelligible meaning. St. Paul came among the Galatians proclaiming to them the glad truth, that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. How did he know it? Because he himself had seen him alive after his passion, “when he came near to Damascus.” Was he quite sure that the vision was not a dream, or a delusion? He pointed to his eyes in proof that it was a great certainty, a terrible as well as joyous reality. And this evidence the Galatians “despised not, nor rejected.”

This explanation of the reference of “rejected,” has also the advantage of removing a difficulty which has hitherto been felt in the translation of the preceding verse. It is there said, “Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached,” &c. Now, it so happens, that the Greek words δι’ ἀσθένειαν, cannot, in accordance with the common usage of the language, be translated “through” (in the sense of during) “infirmity.” Had this been the meaning which the apostle intended to convey, he would have used the genitive δἰ ἀσθένείας. With the accusative, the reference of διὰ is generally found to be to the instrument, ground, or cause of anything, and its meaning is – by, on account of, by means of, on the ground of, &c.53 The literal and strictly correct translation of St. Paul’s words, therefore, is: “By the infirmity of my flesh, I proclaimed to you the good news,” i. e., I adduced the fact of my bodily affliction, as giving indisputable evidence of the truth which I told you about the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ, and this evidence “ye despised not, nor rejected.” Thus, not only a specific meaning is attached to the word “rejected,” but a much more close, distinct, and consistent sense is given to the whole passage, than upon any other understanding of the reference it could possess.

There are one or two other passages in St. Paul’s Epistles, in which reference, I think, is implied to this subject of his bodily affliction, and all of them seem to me to afford incidentally some confirmation of the particular view of the matter which I have endeavored to establish. At the close of the Epistle to the Galatians (chap. vi. verse 11), we find him saying, “Ye see how large a letter I have written to you with my own hand.” Now, the letter is not a very large one; on the contrary, it is one of the shorter of the apostle’s productions. And, then, why should he take credit for having written it with his own hand? Under ordinary circumstances, it would scarcely occur to any one in the habit of writing at all, to speak of this as any remarkable achievement. But, if the Galatians knew him to be laboring under impaired vision, and perhaps severe pain in his eyes, the words are peculiarly significant, and could not fail to make a touching impression on the quick, impulsive temperament, so vividly alive to anything outward, of the Celtic tribe to which they were addressed. And thus too, we obtain an explanation of what would otherwise be rather unaccountable, how a man of St. Paul’s active habits, and whom we have difficulty in conceiving of as accustomed in anything to have recourse to superfluous ministrations, seems to have almost uniformly employed an amanuensis in writing to the various churches.54

Again, at the very conclusion of the Epistle, we have what I cannot help regarding as another allusion to his affliction: “From henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” It has been customary to regard these words as referring to the marks of scourging, stoning, &c., which had been imprinted on the apostle’s body by the enemies of the gospel, in the course of the persecutions to which he had been subjected in consequence of his firm adherence to the faith. But though the fact of his having undergone severe persecution was a strong proof of his sincerity, it was no proof at all of his bearing any authority over the Galatians. Yet this is what he must be understood as asserting here. And I cannot help thinking, that the words, “marks of the Lord Jesus,” are chosen with a reference to that relationship which was established between St. Paul and his Master and Lord, on the occasion of that extraordinary meeting on the way to Damascus, for it was then he received his commission to bear Christ’s name to the Gentiles. Στίγματα were the brands with which slaves were marked in order to prove their ownership. So, if I am right in my understanding of the meaning of the word here, the apostle intends to intimate that the blasting effect produced on his eyes by the glory of that light, constituted the brand which attested his being the servant (δοῦλος) of Jesus Christ, and of his being commissioned by him to communicate to others the truth of the gospel. This gives a force and fulness of meaning which corresponds exactly with the peculiar energy of the expression, while, according to any ordinary explanation of the passage, it seems rather to be strong language used without any adequate occasion for it.55

I think the circumstance of the expression, “marks of the Lord Jesus,” occurring just where it does, at the close of the Epistle, is worthy of remark. From what he says at the 11th verse of the same chapter (“Ye see how large a letter I have written to you with my own hand”) it is obvious that, to whatever cause it is to be attributed, the act of writing was one of considerable effort to the apostle. His zeal, and anxiety, and Christian affection, however, had borne him up, and carried him through with his task. But just as he was concluding, I imagine that he began to feel that the effort he had made was greater than his infirmity was well able to bear. If my idea as to the nature of that infirmity be correct, his weak, diseased eyes were burning and smarting more than ordinarily, from the unusual exertion that had been demanded from them; and this, at once leading his mind to what had been the cause of that exertion, the misconduct of the Galatians and their teachers, naturally wrung from him an assertion of his authority, in the impetuous and reproachful, but at the same time deeply pathetic exclamation: “From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” And so he concludes his Epistle.

In pursuing the above inquiry, certain further conclusions, naturally flowing out of what I have attempted to establish, and yet involving results considerably remote from it, have presented themselves to my thoughts. I am inclined to regard them as calculated in some degree to simplify the mode of presenting the Christian scheme to the mind, and to impart to its claims upon the understanding and belief more of logical directness, and less of the liability to evasion, than appear to me to characterize some of the more ordinary modes of its presentation. But I must leave the development of this, the most interesting, as I think, and important part of my subject, to some future opportunity, should it be granted me.

THE BLACK DWARF’S BONES

… “If thou wert grim,

Lame, ugly, crooked, swart, prodigious.”

King John.

THE BLACK DWARF’S BONES

These gnarled, stunted, useless old bones, were all that David Ritchie, the original of the Black Dwarf, had for left femur and tibia, and we have merely to look at them and add poverty, to know the misery summed up in their possession. They seem to have been blighted and rickety. The thigh-bone is very short and slight, and singularly loose in texture; the leg-bone is dwarfed, but dense and stout. They were given to me many years ago by the late Andrew Ballantyne, Esq. of Woodhouse (the Wudess, as they call it on Tweedside), and their genuineness is unquestionable.

As anything must be interesting about one once so forlorn and miserable, and whom our great wizard has made immortal, I make no apology for printing the following letters from my old friend Mr. Craig, long surgeon in Peebles, and who is now spending his evening, after a long, hard, and useful day’s work, in the quiet vale of Manor, within a mile or two of “Cannie Elshie’s” cottage. The picture he gives is very affecting, and should make us all thankful that we are “wiselike.” There is much that is additional to Sir Walter’s account, in his “Author’s Edition” of the Waverley Novels.

“Hall Manor, Thursday, May 20, 1858.

“My Dear Sir, – David Ritchie, alias Bowed Davie, was born at Easter Happrew, in the parish of Stobo, in the year 1741. He was brought to Woodhouse, in the parish of Manor, when very young. His father was a laborer, and occupied a cottage on that farm; his mother, Anabel Niven, was a delicate woman, severely afflicted with rheumatism, and could not take care of him when an infant. To this cause he attributed his deformity, and this, if added to imperfect clothing, and bad food, and poverty, will account for the grotesque figure which he became. He never was at school, but could read tolerably; had many books; was fond of poetry, especially Allan Ramsay; he hated Burns. His father and mother both died early, and poor Davie became a homeless wanderer; he was two years at Broughton Mill, employed in stirring the husks of oats, which were used for drying the corn on the kiln, and required to be kept constantly in motion; he boasted, with a sort of rapture, of his doings there. From thence he went to Lyne’s Mill, near his birth-place, where he continued one year at the same employment, and from thence he was sent to Edinburgh to learn brush-making, but made no progress in his education there; was annoyed by the wicked boys, or keelies, as he called them, and found his way back to Manor and Woodhouse. The farm now possessed by Mr. Ballantyne, was then occupied by four tenants, among whom he lived; but his house was at Old Woodhouse, where the late Sir James Nasmyth built him a house with two apartments, and separate outer doors, one for himself exactly his own height when standing upright in it; and this stands as it was built, exactly four feet. A Mr. Ritchie, the father of the late minister of Athelstaneford, was then tenant; his wife and Davie could not agree, and she repeatedly asked her husband to put him away, by making the highest stone of his house the lowest. Ritchie left, his house was pulled down, and Davie triumphed in having the stones of his chimney-top made a step to his door, when this new house was built. He was not a little vindictive at times when irritated, especially when any allusion was made to his deformity. On one occasion, he and some other boys were stealing pease in Mr. Gibson’s field, who then occupied Woodhouse; all the others took leg-bail, but Davie’s locomotion being tardy, he was caught, shaken, and scolded by Gibson for all the rest. This he never forgot, and vowed to be avenged on the “auld sinner and deevil;” and one day when Gibson was working about his own door, Davie crept up to the top of the house, which was low, and threw a large stone down on his head, which brought the old man to the ground. Davie crept down the other side of the house, got into bed beside his mother, and it was never known where the stone came from, till he boasted of it long afterwards. He only prayed that it might sink down through his “harn-pan” (his skull). His personal appearance seems to have been almost indescribable, not bearing any likeness to anything in this upper world. But as near as I can learn, his forehead was very narrow and low, sloping upwards and backward, something of the hatchet shape; his eyes deep set, small, and piercing; his nose straight, thin as the end of a cut of cheese, sharp at the point, nearly touching his fearfully projecting chin; and his mouth formed nearly a straight line; his shoulders rather high, but his body otherwise the size of ordinary men; his arms were remarkably strong. With very little aid he built a high garden wall, which still stands, many of the stones of huge size; these the shepherds laid to his directions. His legs beat all power of description; they were bent in every direction, so that Mungo Park, then a surgeon at Peebles, who was called to operate on him for strangulated hernia, said he could compare them to nothing but a pair of corkscrews; but the principal turn they took was from the knee outwards, so that he rested on his inner ankles, and the lower part of his tibias.

‘An’ his knotted knees play’d aye knoit between.’

“He had never a shoe on his feet; the parts on which he walked were rolled in rags, old stockings, &c., but the toes always bare, even in the most severe weather. His mode of progressing was as extraordinary as his shape. He carried a long pole, or ‘kent,’ like the Alpenstock, tolerably polished, with a turned top on it, on which he rested, placed it before him, he then lifted one leg, something in the manner that the oar of a boat is worked, and then the other, next advanced his staff, and repeated the operation, by diligently doing which he was able to make not very slow progress. He frequently walked to Peebles, four miles, and back again, in one day. His arms had no motion at the elbow-joints, but were active enough otherwise. He was not generally ill-tempered, but furious when roused.

“Robert Craig.”
“Hall Manor, June 15, 1858.

“My dear Sir, – I have delayed till now to finish Bowed Davie, in the hope of getting more information, and to very little purpose. His contemporaries are now so few, old, and widely scattered, that they are difficult to be got at, and when come at, their memories are failed, like their bodies. I have forgotten at what stage of his history I left off; but if I repeat, you can omit the repetitions. Sir James Nasmyth, late of Posso, took compassion on the houseless, homeless lusus naturæ, and had a house built for him to his own directions; the door, window, and everything to suit his diminished, grotesque form; the door four feet high, the window twelve by eighteen inches, without glass, closed by a wooden board, hung on leathern hinges, which he used to keep shut. Through it he reconnoitred all visitors, and only admitted ladies and particular favorites; he was very superstitious; ghosts, fairies, and robbers he dreaded most. I have forgotten if I mentioned how he contrived to be fed and warmed. He had a small allowance from the parish poor-box, about fifty shillings; this was eked out by an annual peregrination through the parish, when some gave him food, others money, wool, &c., which he hoarded most miserly. How he cooked his food I have not been able to learn, for his sister, who lived in the same cottage with him, was separated by a stone and lime wall, and had a separate door of the usual size, and window to match, and was never allowed to enter his dwelling; but he brought home such loads, that the shepherds had to be on the lookout for him, when on his annual eleemosynary expeditions, to carry home part of his spoil. On one occasion a servant was ordered to give him some salt, for containing which he carried a long stocking; he thought the damsel had scrimped him in quantity, and he sat and distended the stocking till it appeared less than half full, by pressing down the salt, and then called for the gudewife, showed it her, and asked if she had ordered Jenny only to give him that wee pickle saut; the maid was scolded, and the stocking filled. He spent all his evenings at the back of the Woodhouse kitchen fire, and got at least one meal every day, where he used to make the rustics gape and stare at the many ghost, fairy, and robber stories which he had either heard of or invented, and poured out with unceasing volubility, and so often that he believed them all true. But the Ballantyne family had no great faith in his veracity, when it suited his convenience to fib, exaggerate, or prevaricate, particularly when excited by his own lucubrations, or the waggery of his more intellectual neighbors and companions. He had a seat in the centre, which he always occupied, and a stool for his deformed feet and legs; they all rose at times, asking Davie to do likewise, and when he got upon his pins, he was shorter than when sitting, his body being of the ordinary length, and the deficiency all in his legs. On one occasion, a wag named Elder put up a log of wood opposite his loophole, made a noise, and told Davie that the robbers he dreaded so much were now at his house, and would not go away; he peeped out, and saw the log, exclaimed, ‘So he is, by the Lord God and my soul; Willie Elder, gi’e me the gun, and see that she is weel charged.’ Elder put in a very large supply of powder without shot, rammed it hard, got a stool, which Davie mounted, Elder handing him the gun, charging him to take time, and aim fair, for if he missed him, he would be mad at being shot at, be sure to come in, take everything in the house, cut their throats, and burn the house after. Davie tremblingly obeyed, presented the gun slowly and cautiously, drew the trigger; off went the shot, the musket rebounded, and back went Davie with a rattle on the floor. Some accomplice tumbled the log; Davie at length was encouraged to look out, and actually believed that he had shot the robber; said he had done for him now, ‘that ane wad plague him nae mair at ony rate.’ He took it into his head at one time that he ought to be married, and having got the consent of a haverel wench to yoke with him in the silken bonds of matrimony, went to the minister several times, and asked him to perform the ceremony. At length the minister sent him away, saying that he could not and would not accommodate him in the matter. Davie swung himself out at the door on his kent, much crestfallen, and in great wrath, shutting the door with a bang behind him, but opening it again, he shook his clenched fist in the parson’s face, and said, ‘Weel, weel, ye’ll no let decent, honest folk marry; but, ’od, lad, I’se plenish your parish wi’ bastards, to see what ye’ll mak o’ that,’ and away he went. He read Hooke’s Pantheon, and made great use of the heathen deities. He railed sadly at the taxes; some one observed that he need not grumble at them as he had none to pay. ‘Hae I no’?’ he replied, ‘I can neither get a pickle snuff to my neb, nor a pickle tea to my mouth, but they maun tax ’t.’ His sister and he were on very unfriendly terms. She was ill on one occasion; Miss Ballantyne asked how she was to-day. He replied, ‘I dinna ken, I ha’na been in, for I hate folk that are aye gaun to dee and never do’t,’ In 1811 he was seized with obstruction of the bowels and consequent inflammation; blisters and various remedies were applied for three days without effect. Some one came to Mrs. Ballantyne and said that it was ‘just about a’ owre wi’ Davie noo.’ She went, and he breathed his last almost immediately. His sister without any delay, got his keys, and went to his secret repository, Mrs. Ballantyne thought to get dead-clothes, but instead, to the amazement of all present, she threw three money-bags, one after another, into Mrs. Ballantyne’s lap, telling her to count that, and that, and that. Mrs. B. was annoyed and astonished at the multitude of half-crowns and shillings, all arranged according to value. He hated sixpences, and had none, but the third contained four guineas in gold. Mrs. B. was disgusted with the woman’s greed, and put them all up, saying, what would anybody think if they came in and found them counting the man’s money and his breath scarcely out, – took it all home to her husband, who made out £4 2s. in gold, £10 in a bank receipt, and £7 18s. in shillings and half-crowns, in all £22. How did he get this? He had many visitors, the better class of whom gave him half-crowns, others shillings and sixpences; the latter he never kept, but converted them into shillings and half-crowns whenever he got an opportunity. I asked the wright how he got him into a coffin. He replied, ‘Easily; they made it deeper than ordinary, and wider, so as to let in his distorted legs, as it was impossible to streek him like others.’ He often expressed a resolve to be buried on the Woodhill top, three miles up the water from the church-yard, as he could never ‘lie amang the common trash;’ however, this was not accomplished, as his friend, Sir James Nasmyth, who had promised to carry this wish into effect, was on the Continent at the time. When Sir James returned, he spoke of having his remains lifted and buried where he had wished; but this was never done, and the expense of a railing and plantation of rowan-trees (mountain ash), his favorite prophylactic against the spells of witches and fairies, was abandoned. The Woodhill is a romantic, green little mount, situated at the west side of the Manor, which washes its base on the east, and separates it from Langhaugh heights, part of a lofty, rocky, and heathery mountain range, and on the west is the ruin of the ancient peel-house of old Posso, long the residence of the Nasmyth family. And now that we have the Dwarf dead and buried, comes the history of his resurrection in 1821. His sister died exactly ten years after him. A report had been spread that he had been lifted and taken to dissecting-rooms in Glasgow, which at that period was the fate of many a more seemly corpse than Davie’s; and the young men – for Manor had no sexton – who dug the sister’s grave in the vicinity of her brother’s, stimulated by curiosity to see if his body had really been carried off, and if still there what his bones were like, lifted them up, and carried them to Woodhouse, where they lay a considerable time, till they were sent to Mr. Ballantyne, then in Glasgow. Miss Ballantyne thinks the skull was taken away with the other bones, but put back again. I have thus given you all the information I can gather about the Black Dwarf that I think worth narrating. It is reported that he sometimes sold a gill, but if this is true the Ballantynes never knew it. Miss Ballantyne says that he was not ill-tempered, but on the contrary, kind, especially to children. She and her brother were very young when she went to Woodhouse, and her father objected to resetting the farm from Sir James, on account of the fearful accounts of his horrid temper and barbarous deeds, and Sir James said if he ever troubled them that he would immediately put him away; but he was very fond of the younger ones, played with them, and amused them, though when roused and provoked by grown-up people, he raged, stormed, swore terrifically, and struck with anything that was near him, in short, he had an irritable but not a sulky, sour, misanthropic temper. The Messrs. Chambers wrote a book about him and his doings at a very early period of their literary history. Did I tell you of a female relative, Niven (whom he would never see), saying that she would come and streek him after he died? He sent word, ‘that if she offered to touch his corpse he would rive the thrapple oot o’ her – he would raither be streekit by Auld Clootie’s ain red-het hands.’ – Yours, truly obliged,

R. C.”

This poor, vindictive, solitary, and powerful creature, was a philocalist: he had a singular love of flowers and of beautiful women. He was a sort of Paris, to whom the blushing Aphrodites of the glen used to come, and his judgment is said to have been as good, as the world generally thinks that of Œnone’s handsome and faithless mate. His garden was full of the finest flowers, and it was his pleasure, when the young beauties