JOHN GRAY is a native of Gilmanscleugh, a farm in the parish of Ettrick, of which his father was formerly the shepherd, and from which, according to Border custom, he derives his popular designation or title “OF GILMANSCLEUGH.” Jock is now above forty years of age, and still wanders through the neighbouring counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, in a half minstrel, half mendicant manner, finding, even after the fervour of youth is past, no pleasure in a sedentary or domestic life. Many months, many weeks, had not elapsed after Jock came into the world, before all the old women of the _Faculty_ in the parish discovered that “he had a want.” As he grew up, it was found that he had no capacity for the learning taught at the parish school, though, in receiving various other sorts of lore, he showed an aptitude far surpassing that of more highly gifted children. Thus, though he had not steadiness of mind to comprehend the alphabet, and Barrie’s smallest primer was to him as a fountain closed and a book sealed, he caught, at a wonderfully early age, and with a rapidity almost incredible, many fragments of Border song, which he could repeat, with the music, in the precise manner of those who instructed him; and indeed he discovered an almost miraculous power of giving utterance to sounds, in all their extensive and intricate varieties. All endeavours on the part of his parents to communicate to his mind the seeds of written knowledge having failed, Jock was abandoned to the oral lore he loved so much; and of this he soon possessed himself of an immense stock. His boyhood was passed in perfect idleness; yet if it could have been proved upon him that he had the smallest glimmering of sense, his days would not have been so easy. In Jock’s native district there are just two ways for a boy to spend his time; either he must go to school, or he must tend the cows; and it generally happens that he goes to school in summer and tends the cows in winter. But Jock’s idiocy, like Caleb Balderstone’s “fire,” was an excuse for every duty. As to the first employment, his friend the Dominie bore him out with flying colours; for the second, the question was set for ever at rest by a _coup de main_ achieved by the rascal’s own happy fancy. “John,” says the minister of Yarrow to him one day, “you are the idlest boy in the parish; you do nothing all day but go about from house to house; you might at least herd a few cows.” “Me, sir!” says Jock, with the most stolid stare imaginable, “how could I herd the kye? Losh, sir, _I disna ken corn by garse_!”—This happy bit was enough to keep Jock comfortable all the rest of his life.