"Over thine," retorted the Dwarf, more splenetically than became a
philosopher or hermit, "folly exercises an unlimited empire, asleep or
awake."

"Lord bless us!" said the lady, "he's a prophet, sure enough."

"As surely," continued the Recluse, "as thou art a woman.--A woman!--I
should have said a lady--a fine lady. You asked me to tell your
fortune--it is a simple one; an endless chase through life after follies
not worth catching, and, when caught, successively thrown away--a chase,
pursued from the days of tottering infancy to those of old age upon his
crutches. Toys and merry-makings in childhood--love and its absurdities
in youth--spadille and basto in age, shall succeed each other as
objects of pursuit--flowers and butterflies in spring--butterflies
and thistle-down in summer--withered leaves in autumn and winter--all
pursued, all caught, all flung aside.--Stand apart; your fortune is
said."

"All CAUGHT, however," retorted the laughing fair one, who was a cousin
of Miss Vere's; "that's something, Nancy," she continued, turning to
the timid damsel who had first approached the Dwarf; "will you ask your
fortune?"

"Not for worlds," said she, drawing back; "I have heard enough of
yours."

"Well, then," said Miss Ilderton, offering money to the Dwarf, "I'll pay
for mine, as if it were spoken by an oracle to a princess."

"Truth," said the Soothsayer, "can neither be bought nor sold;" and he
pushed back her proffered offering with morose disdain.

"Well, then," said the lady, "I'll keep my money, Mr. Elshender, to
assist me in the chase I am to pursue."

"You will need it," replied the cynic; "without it, few pursue
successfully, and fewer are themselves pursued.--Stop!" he said to Miss
Vere, as her companions moved off, "With you I have more to say.
You have what your companions would wish to have, or be thought to
have,--beauty, wealth, station, accomplishments."

"Forgive my following my companions, father; I am proof both to flattery
and fortune-telling."

"Stay," continued the Dwarf, with his hand on her horse's rein, "I am
no common soothsayer, and I am no flatterer. All the advantages I
have detailed, all and each of them have their corresponding
evils--unsuccessful love, crossed affections, the gloom of a convent,
or an odious alliance. I, who wish ill to all mankind, cannot wish more
evil to you, so much is your course of life crossed by it."

"And if it be, father, let me enjoy the readiest solace of adversity
while prosperity is in my power. You are old; you are poor; your
habitation is far from human aid, were you ill, or in want; your
situation, in many respects, exposes you to the suspicions of the
vulgar, which are too apt to break out into actions of brutality. Let
me think I have mended the lot of one human being! Accept of such
assistance as I have power to offer; do this for my sake, if not for
your own, that when these evils arise, which you prophesy perhaps too
truly, I may not have to reflect, that the hours of my happier time have
been passed altogether in vain."

The old man answered with a broken voice, and almost without addressing
himself to the young lady,--

"Yes, 'tis thus thou shouldst think--'tis thus thou shouldst speak,
if ever human speech and thought kept touch with each other! They do
not--they do not--Alas! they cannot. And yet--wait here an instant--stir
not till my return." He went to his little garden, and returned with a
half-blown rose. "Thou hast made me shed a tear, the first which has
wet my eyelids for many a year; for that good deed receive this token
of gratitude. It is but a common rose; preserve it, however, and do not
part with it. Come to me in your hour of adversity. Show me that rose,
or but one leaf of it, were it withered as my heart is--if it should be
in my fiercest and wildest movements of rage against a hateful world,
still it will recall gentler thoughts to my bosom, and perhaps afford
happier prospects to thine. But no message," he exclaimed, rising
into his usual mood of misanthropy,--"no message--no go-between! Come
thyself; and the heart and the doors that are shut against every other
earthly being, shall open to thee and to thy sorrows. And now pass on."

He let go the bridle-rein, and the young lady rode on, after expressing
her thanks to this singular being, as well as her surprise at the
extraordinary nature of his address would permit, often turning back to
look at the Dwarf, who still remained at the door of his habitation,
and watched her progress over the moor towards her father's castle of
Ellieslaw, until the brow of the hill hid the party from his sight.

The ladies, meantime, jested with Miss Vere on the strange interview
they had just had with the far-famed wizard of the Moor. "Isabella has
all the luck at home and abroad! Her hawk strikes down the black-cock;
her eyes wound the gallant; no chance for her poor companions and
kinswomen; even the conjuror cannot escape the force of her charms. You
should, in compassion, cease to be such an engrosser, my dear Isabel, or
at least set up shop, and sell off all the goods you do not mean to keep
for your own use."

"You shall have them all," replied Miss Vere, "and the conjuror to boot,
at a very easy rate."

"No! Nancy shall have the conjuror," said Miss Ilderton, "to supply
deficiencies; she's not quite a witch herself, you know."

"Lord, sister," answered the younger Miss Ilderton, "what could I do
with so frightful a monster? I kept my eyes shut, after once glancing at
him; and, I protest, I thought I saw him still, though I winked as close
as ever I could."

"That's a pity," said her sister; "ever while you live, Nancy, choose an
admirer whose faults can be hid by winking at them.--Well, then, I must
take him myself, I suppose, and put him into mamma's Japan cabinet,
in order to show that Scotland can produce a specimen of mortal clay
moulded into a form ten thousand times uglier than the imaginations of
Canton and Pekin, fertile as they are in monsters, have immortalized in
porcelain."

"There is something," said Miss Vere, "so melancholy in the situation of
this poor man, that I cannot enter into your mirth, Lucy, so readily as
usual. If he has no resources, how is he to exist in this waste country,
living, as he does, at such a distance from mankind? and if he has the
means of securing occasional assistance, will not the very suspicion
that he is possessed of them, expose him to plunder and assassination by
some of our unsettled neighbours?"

"But you forget that they say he is a warlock," said Nancy Ilderton.

"And, if his magic diabolical should fail him," rejoined her sister, "I
would have him trust to his magic natural, and thrust his enormous head,
and most preternatural visage, out at his door or window, full in view
of the assailants. The boldest robber that ever rode would hardly bide a
second glance of him. Well, I wish I had the use of that Gorgon head of
his for only one half hour."

"For what purpose, Lucy?" said Miss Vere.

"O! I would frighten out of the castle that dark, stiff, and stately Sir
Frederick Langley, that is so great a favourite with your father, and so
little a favourite of yours. I protest I shall be obliged to the Wizard
as long as I live, if it were only for the half hour's relief from that
man's company which we have gained by deviating from the party to visit
Elshie."

"What would you say, then," said Miss Vere, in a low tone, so as not to
be heard by the younger sister, who rode before them, the narrow path
not admitting of their moving all three abreast,--"What would you say,
my dearest Lucy, if it were proposed to you to endure his company for
life?"

"Say? I would say, NO, NO, NO, three times, each louder than another,
till they should hear me at Carlisle."

"And Sir Frederick would say then, nineteen nay-says are half a grant."

"That," replied Miss Lucy, "depends entirely on the manner in which the
nay-says are said. Mine should have not one grain of concession in them,
I promise you."

"But if your father," said Miss Vere, "were to say,--Thus do, or--"

"I would stand to the consequences of his OR, were he the most cruel
father that ever was recorded in romance, to fill up the alternative."

"And what if he threatened you with a catholic aunt, an abbess, and a
cloister?"

"Then," said Miss Ilderton, "I would threaten him with a protestant
son-in-law, and be glad of an opportunity to disobey him for conscience'
sake. And now that Nancy is out of hearing, let me really say, I
think you would be excusable before God and man for resisting this
preposterous match by every means in your power. A proud, dark,
ambitious man; a caballer against the state; infamous for his avarice
and severity; a bad son, a bad brother, unkind and ungenerous to all his
relatives--Isabel, I would die rather than have him."

"Don't let my father hear you give me such advice," said Miss Vere, "or
adieu, my dear Lucy, to Ellieslaw Castle."

"And adieu to Ellieslaw Castle, with all my heart," said her friend, "if
I once saw you fairly out of it, and settled under some kinder protector
than he whom nature has given you. O, if my poor father had been in his
former health, how gladly would he have received and sheltered you, till
this ridiculous and cruel persecution were blown over!"

"Would to God it had been so, my dear Lucy!" answered Isabella; "but
I fear, that, in your father's weak state of health, he would be
altogether unable to protect me against the means which would be
immediately used for reclaiming the poor fugitive."

"I fear so indeed," replied Miss Ilderton; "but we will consider and
devise something. Now that your father and his guests seem so deeply
engaged in some mysterious plot, to judge from the passing and returning
of messages, from the strange faces which appear and disappear without
being announced by their names, from the collecting and cleaning of
arms, and the anxious gloom and bustle which seem to agitate every male
in the castle, it may not be impossible for us (always in case matters
be driven to extremity) to shape out some little supplemental conspiracy
of our own. I hope the gentlemen have not kept all the policy to
themselves; and there is one associate that I would gladly admit to our
counsel."

"Not Nancy?"

"O, no!" said Miss Ilderton; "Nancy, though an excellent good girl,
and fondly attached to you, would make a dull conspirator--as dull as
Renault and all the other subordinate plotters in VENICE PRESERVED. No;
this is a Jaffier, or Pierre, if you like the character better; and yet
though I know I shall please you, I am afraid to mention his name to
you, lest I vex you at the same time. Can you not guess? Something
about an eagle and a rock--it does not begin with eagle in English, but
something very like it in Scotch."

"You cannot mean young Earnscliff, Lucy?" said Miss Vere, blushing
deeply.

"And whom else should I mean," said Lucy. "Jaffiers and Pierres are very
scarce in this country, I take it, though one could find Renaults and
Bedamars enow."

"How call you talk so wildly, Lucy? Your plays and romances have
positively turned your brain. You know, that, independent of my father's
consent, without which I never will marry any one, and which, in the
case you point at, would never be granted; independent, too, of our
knowing nothing of young Earnscliff's inclinations, but by your own
vivid conjectures and fancies--besides all this, there is the fatal
brawl!"

"When his father was killed?" said Lucy. "But that was very long ago;
and I hope we have outlived the time of bloody feud, when a quarrel was
carried down between two families from father to son, like a Spanish
game at chess, and a murder or two committed in every generation, just
to keep the matter from going to sleep. We do with our quarrels nowadays
as with our clothes; cut them out for ourselves, and wear them out in
our own day, and should no more think of resenting our fathers' feuds,
than of wearing their slashed doublets and trunk-hose."

"You treat this far too lightly, Lucy," answered Miss Vere.

"Not a bit, my dear Isabella," said Lucy. "Consider, your father, though
present in the unhappy affray, is never supposed to have struck the
fatal blow; besides, in former times, in case of mutual slaughter
between clans, subsequent alliances were so far from being excluded,
that the hand of a daughter or a sister was the most frequent gage of
reconciliation. You laugh at my skill in romance; but, I assure you,
should your history be written, like that of many a less distressed and
less deserving heroine, the well-judging reader would set you down for
the lady and the love of Earnscliff; from the very obstacle which you
suppose so insurmountable."

"But these are not the days of romance, but of sad reality, for there
stands the castle of Ellieslaw."

"And there stands Sir Frederick Langley at the gate, waiting to assist
the ladies from their palfreys. I would as lief touch a toad; I will
disappoint him, and take old Horsington the groom for my master of the
horse."

So saying, the lively young lady switched her palfrey forward, and
passing Sir Frederick with a familiar nod as he stood ready to take
her horse's rein, she cantered on, and jumped into the arms of the old
groom. Fain would Isabella have done the same had she dared; but her
father stood near, displeasure already darkening on a countenance
peculiarly qualified to express the harsher passions, and she was
compelled to receive the unwelcome assiduities of her detested suitor.



CHAPTER VI.

     Let not us that are squires of the night's body be called
     thieves of the day's booty; let us be Diana's foresters,
     gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon.
     --HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I.

The Solitary had consumed the remainder of that day in which he had the
interview with the young ladies, within the precincts of his garden.
Evening again found him seated on his favourite stone. The sun setting
red, and among seas of rolling clouds, threw a gloomy lustre over the
moor, and gave a deeper purple to the broad outline of heathy mountains
which surrounded this desolate spot. The Dwarf sate watching the clouds
as they lowered above each other in masses of conglomerated vapours,
and, as a strong lurid beam of the sinking luminary darted full on his
solitary and uncouth figure, he might well have seemed the demon of
the storm which was gathering, or some gnome summoned forth from the
recesses of the earth by the subterranean signals of its approach. As he
sate thus, with his dark eye turned towards the scowling and blackening
heaven, a horseman rode rapidly up to him, and stopping, as if to
let his horse breathe for an instant, made a sort of obeisance to the
anchoret, with an air betwixt effrontery and embarrassment.

The figure of the rider was thin, tall, and slender, but remarkably
athletic, bony, and sinewy; like one who had all his life followed those
violent exercises which prevent the human form from increasing in bulk,
while they harden and confirm by habit its muscular powers. His face,
sharp-featured, sun-burnt, and freckled, had a sinister expression of
violence, impudence, and cunning, each of which seemed alternately to
predominate over the others. Sandy-coloured hair, and reddish eyebrows,
from under which looked forth his sharp grey eyes, completed the
inauspicious outline of the horseman's physiognomy. He had pistols in
his holsters, and another pair peeped from his belt, though he had taken
some pains to conceal them by buttoning his doublet. He wore a rusted
steel head piece; a buff jacket of rather an antique cast; gloves, of
which that for the right hand was covered with small scales of iron,
like an ancient gauntlet; and a long broadsword completed his equipage.

"So," said the Dwarf, "rapine and murder once more on horseback."

"On horseback?" said the bandit; "ay, ay, Elshie, your leech-craft has
set me on the bonny bay again."

"And all those promises of amendment which you made during your illness
forgotten?" continued Elshender.

"All clear away, with the water-saps and panada," returned the unabashed
convalescent. "Ye ken, Elshie, for they say ye are weel acquent wi' the
gentleman,

     "When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,
     When the devil was well, the devil a monk was he."

"Thou say'st true," said the Solitary; "as well divide a wolf from his
appetite for carnage, or a raven from her scent of slaughter, as thee
from thy accursed propensities."

"Why, what would you have me to do? It's born with me--lies in my
very blude and bane. Why, man, the lads of Westburnflat, for ten lang
descents, have been reivers and lifters. They have all drunk hard, lived
high, taking deep revenge for light offence, and never wanted gear for
the winning."

"Right; and thou art as thorough-bred a wolf," said the Dwarf, "as ever
leapt a lamb-fold at night. On what hell's errand art thou bound now?"

"Can your skill not guess?"

"Thus far I know," said the Dwarf, "that thy purpose is bad, thy deed
will be worse, and the issue worst of all."

"And you like me the better for it, Father Elshie, eh?" said
Westburnflat; "you always said you did."

"I have cause to like all," answered the Solitary, "that are scourges to
their fellow-creatures, and thou art a bloody one."

"No--I say not guilty to that--lever bluidy unless there's resistance,
and that sets a man's bristles up, ye ken. And this is nae great matter,
after a'; just to cut the comb of a young cock that has been crawing a
little ower crousely."

"Not young Earnscliff?" said the Solitary, with some emotion.

"No; not young Earnscliff--not young Earnscliff YET; but his time may
come, if he will not take warning, and get him back to the burrow-town
that he's fit for, and no keep skelping about here, destroying the
few deer that are left in the country, and pretending to act as a
magistrate, and writing letters to the great folk at Auld Reekie, about
the disturbed state of the land. Let him take care o' himsell."

"Then it must be Hobbie of the Heugh-foot," said Elshie. "What harm has
the lad done you?"

"Harm! nae great harm; but I hear he says I staid away from the Ba'spiel
on Fastern's E'en, for fear of him; and it was only for fear of the
Country Keeper, for there was a warrant against me. I'll stand Hobbie's
feud, and a' his clan's. But it's not so much for that, as to gie him
a lesson not to let his tongue gallop ower freely about his betters. I
trow he will hae lost the best pen-feather o' his wing before to-morrow
morning.--Farewell, Elshie; there's some canny boys waiting for me down
amang the shaws, owerby; I will see you as I come back, and bring ye a
blithe tale in return for your leech-craft."

Ere the Dwarf could collect himself to reply, the Reiver of Westburnflat
set spurs to his horse. The animal, starting at one of the stones which
lay scattered about, flew from the path. The rider exercised his spurs
without moderation or mercy. The horse became furious, reared, kicked,
plunged, and bolted like a deer, with all his four feet off the ground
at once. It was in vain; the unrelenting rider sate as if he had been
a part of the horse which he bestrode; and, after a short but furious
contest, compelled the subdued animal to proceed upon the path at a rate
which soon carried him out of sight of the Solitary.

"That villain," exclaimed the Dwarf,--"that cool-blooded, hardened,
unrelenting ruffian,--that wretch, whose every thought is infected with
crimes,--has thewes and sinews, limbs, strength, and activity enough, to
compel a nobler animal than himself to carry him to the place where he
is to perpetrate his wickedness; while I, had I the weakness to wish to
put his wretched victim on his guard, and to save the helpless family,
would see my good intentions frustrated by the decrepitude which chains
me to the spot.--Why should I wish it were otherwise? What have my
screech-owl voice, my hideous form, and my mis-shapen features, to
do with the fairer workmanship of nature? Do not men receive even my
benefits with shrinking horror and ill-suppressed disgust? And why
should I interest myself in a race which accounts me a prodigy and an
outcast, and which has treated me as such? No; by all the ingratitude
which I have reaped--by all the wrongs which I have sustained--by my
imprisonment, my stripes, my chains, I will wrestle down my feelings of
rebellious humanity! I will not be the fool I have been, to swerve from
my principles whenever there was an appeal, forsooth, to my feelings; as
if I, towards whom none show sympathy, ought to have sympathy with any
one. Let Destiny drive forth her scythed car through the overwhelmed and
trembling mass of humanity! Shall I be the idiot to throw this decrepit
form, this mis-shapen lump of mortality, under her wheels, that the
Dwarf, the Wizard, the Hunchback, may save from destruction some fair
form or some active frame, and all the world clap their hands at the
exchange? No, never!--And yet this Elliot--this Hobbie, so young and
gallant, so frank, so--I will think of it no longer. I cannot aid him if
I would, and I am resolved--firmly resolved, that I would not aid him,
if a wish were the pledge of his safety!"

Having thus ended his soliloquy, he retreated into his hut for shelter
from the storm which was fast approaching, and now began to burst in
large and heavy drops of rain. The last rays of the sun now disappeared
entirely, and two or three claps of distant thunder followed each other
at brief intervals, echoing and re-echoing among the range of heathy
fells like the sound of a distant engagement.



CHAPTER VII.

     Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!--
     .  .  .  .
     Return to thy dwelling; all lonely, return;
     For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
     And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.--CAMPBELL.

The night continued sullen and stormy; but morning rose as if refreshed
by the rains. Even the Mucklestane-Moor, with its broad bleak swells of
barren grounds, interspersed with marshy pools of water, seemed to smile
under the serene influence of the sky, just as good-humour can spread
a certain inexpressible charm over the plainest human countenance.
The heath was in its thickest and deepest bloom. The bees, which the
Solitary had added to his rural establishment, were abroad and on the
wing, and filled the air with the murmurs of their industry. As the old
man crept out of his little hut, his two she-goats came to meet him, and
licked his hands in gratitude for the vegetables with which he supplied
them from his garden. "You, at least," he said--"you, at least, see no
differences in form which can alter your feelings to a benefactor--to
you, the finest shape that ever statuary moulded would be an object
of indifference or of alarm, should it present itself instead of the
mis-shapen trunk to whose services you are accustomed. While I was in
the world, did I ever meet with such a return of gratitude? No; the
domestic whom I had bred from infancy made mouths at me as he stood
behind my chair; the friend whom I had supported with my fortune, and
for whose sake I had even stained--(he stopped with a strong convulsive
shudder), even he thought me more fit for the society of lunatics--for
their disgraceful restraints--for their cruel privations, than for
communication with the rest of humanity. Hubert alone--and Hubert too
will one day abandon me. All are of a piece, one mass of wickedness,
selfishness, and ingratitude--wretches, who sin even in their devotions;
and of such hardness of heart, that they do not, without hypocrisy, even
thank the Deity himself for his warm sun and pure air."

As he was plunged in these gloomy soliloquies, he heard the tramp of a
horse on the other side of his enclosure, and a strong clear bass voice
singing with the liveliness inspired by a light heart,

     Canny Hobbie Elliot, canny Hobbie now,
     Canny Hobbie Elliot, I'se gang alang wi' you.

At the same moment, a large deer greyhound sprung over the hermit's
fence. It is well known to the sportsmen in these wilds, that the
appearance and scent of the goat so much resemble those of their usual
objects of chase, that the best-broke greyhounds will sometimes fly upon
them. The dog in question instantly pulled down and throttled one of the
hermit's she-goats, while Hobbie Elliot, who came up, and jumped from
his horse for the purpose, was unable to extricate the harmless animal
from the fangs of his attendant until it was expiring. The Dwarf eyed,
for a few moments, the convulsive starts of his dying favourite, until
the poor goat stretched out her limbs with the twitches and shivering
fit of the last agony. He then started into an access of frenzy, and
unsheathing a long sharp knife, or dagger, which he wore under his
coat, he was about to launch it at the dog, when Hobbie, perceiving his
purpose, interposed, and caught hold of his hand, exclaiming, "Let a be
the hound, man--let a be the hound!--Na, na, Killbuck maunna be guided
that gate, neither."

The Dwarf turned his rage on the young farmer; and, by a sudden effort,
far more powerful than Hobbie expected from such a person, freed his
wrist from his grasp, and offered the dagger at his heart. All this was
done in the twinkling of an eye, and the incensed Recluse might have
completed his vengeance by plunging the weapon in Elliot's bosom, had he
not been checked by an internal impulse which made him hurl the knife to
a distance.

"No," he exclaimed, as he thus voluntarily deprived himself of the means
of gratifying his rage; "not again--not again!"

Hobbie retreated a step or two in great surprise, discomposure, and
disdain, at having been placed in such danger by an object apparently so
contemptible.

"The deil's in the body for strength and bitterness!" were the first
words that escaped him, which he followed up with an apology for the
accident that had given rise to their disagreement. "I am no justifying
Killbuck a'thegither neither, and I am sure it is as vexing to me as to
you, Elshie, that the mischance should hae happened; but I'll send you
twa goats and twa fat gimmers, man, to make a' straight again. A wise
man like you shouldna bear malice against a poor dumb thing; ye see that
a goat's like first-cousin to a deer, sae he acted but according to his
nature after a'. Had it been a pet-lamb, there wad hae been mair to be
said. Ye suld keep sheep, Elshie, and no goats, where there's sae mony
deerhounds about--but I'll send ye baith."

"Wretch!" said the Hermit, "your cruelty has destroyed one of the only
creatures in existence that would look on me with kindness!"

"Dear Elshie," answered Hobbie, "I'm wae ye suld hae cause to say sae;
I'm sure it wasna wi' my will. And yet, it's true, I should hae minded
your goats, and coupled up the dogs. I'm sure I would rather they had
worried the primest wether in my faulds.--Come, man, forget and forgie.
I'm e'en as vexed as ye can be--But I am a bridegroom, ye see, and that
puts a' things out o' my head, I think. There's the marriage-dinner, or
gude part o't, that my twa brithers are bringing on a sled round by the
Riders' Slack, three goodly bucks as ever ran on Dallomlea, as the sang
says; they couldna come the straight road for the saft grund. I wad send
ye a bit venison, but ye wadna take it weel maybe, for Killbuck catched
it."

During this long speech, in which the good-natured Borderer endeavoured
to propitiate the offended Dwarf by every argument he could think of,
he heard him with his eyes bent on the ground, as if in the deepest
meditation, and at length broke forth--"Nature?--yes! it is indeed in
the usual beaten path of Nature. The strong gripe and throttle the weak;
the rich depress and despoil the needy; the happy (those who are idiots
enough to think themselves happy) insult the misery and diminish the
consolation of the wretched.--Go hence, thou who hast contrived to give
an additional pang to the most miserable of human beings--thou who hast
deprived me of what I half considered as a source of comfort. Go hence,
and enjoy the happiness prepared for thee at home!"

"Never stir," said Hobbie, "if I wadna take you wi' me, man, if ye wad
but say it wad divert ye to be at the bridal on Monday. There will be
a hundred strapping Elliots to ride the brouze--the like's no been seen
sin' the days of auld Martin of the Preakin-tower--I wad send the sled
for ye wi' a canny powny."

"Is it to me you propose once more to mix in the society of the common
herd?" said the Recluse, with an air of deep disgust.

"Commons!" retorted Hobbie, "nae siccan commons neither; the Elliots hae
been lang kend a gentle race."

"Hence! begone!" reiterated the Dwarf; "may the same evil luck attend
thee that thou hast left behind with me! If I go not with you myself,
see if you can escape what my attendants, Wrath and Misery, have brought
to thy threshold before thee."

"I wish ye wadna speak that gate," said Hobbie. "Ye ken yoursell,
Elshie, naebody judges you to be ower canny; now, I'll tell ye just ae
word for a'--ye hae spoken as muckle as wussing ill to me and mine; now,
if ony mischance happen to Grace, which God forbid, or to mysell; or to
the poor dumb tyke; or if I be skaithed and injured in body, gudes, or
gear, I'll no forget wha it is that it's owing to."

"Out, hind!" exclaimed the Dwarf; "home! home to your dwelling, and
think on me when you find what has befallen there."

"Aweel, aweel," said Hobbie, mounting his horse, "it serves naething to
strive wi' cripples,--they are aye cankered; but I'll just tell ye
ae thing, neighbour, that if things be otherwise than weel wi' Grace
Armstrong, I'se gie you a scouther if there be a tar-barrel in the five
parishes."

So saying, he rode off; and Elshie, after looking at him with a scornful
and indignant laugh, took spade and mattock, and occupied himself in
digging a grave for his deceased favourite.

A low whistle, and the words, "Hisht, Elshie, hisht!" disturbed him
in this melancholy occupation. He looked up, and the Red Reiver of
Westburnflat was before him. Like Banquo's murderer, there was blood on
his face, as well as upon the rowels of his spurs and the sides of his
over-ridden horse.

"How now, ruffian!" demanded the Dwarf, "is thy job chared?"

"Ay, ay, doubt not that, Elshie," answered the freebooter; "When I
ride, my foes may moan. They have had mair light than comfort at the
Heugh-foot this morning; there's a toom byre and a wide, and a wail and
a cry for the bonny bride."

"The bride?"

"Ay; Charlie Cheat-the-Woodie, as we ca' him, that's Charlie Foster of
Tinning Beck, has promised to keep her in Cumberland till the blast blaw
by. She saw me, and kend me in the splore, for the mask fell frae my
face for a blink. I am thinking it wad concern my safety if she were
to come back here, for there's mony o' the Elliots, and they band weel
thegither for right or wrang. Now, what I chiefly come to ask your rede
in, is how to make her sure?"

"Wouldst thou murder her, then?"

"Umph! no, no; that I would not do, if I could help it. But they say
they can whiles get folk cannily away to the plantations from some of
the outports, and something to boot for them that brings a bonny wench.
They're wanted beyond seas thae female cattle, and they're no that
scarce here. But I think o' doing better for this lassie. There's a
leddy, that, unless she be a' the better bairn, is to be sent to foreign
parts whether she will or no; now, I think of sending Grace to wait on
her--she's a bonny lassie. Hobbie will hae a merry morning when he comes
hame, and misses baith bride and gear."

"Ay; and do you not pity him?" said the Recluse.

"Wad he pity me were I gaeing up the Castle hill at Jeddart? [ The
place of execution at that ancient burgh, where many of Westburnflat's
profession have made their final exit.] And yet I rue something for the
bit lassie; but he'll get anither, and little skaith dune--ane is as
gude as anither. And now, you that like to hear o' splores, heard ye
ever o' a better ane than I hae had this morning?"

"Air, ocean, and fire," said the Dwarf, speaking to himself, "the
earthquake, the tempest, the volcano, are all mild and moderate,
compared to the wrath of man. And what is this fellow, but one more
skilled than others in executing the end of his existence?--Hear me,
felon, go again where I before sent thee."

"To the Steward?"

"Ay; and tell him, Elshender the Recluse commands him to give thee gold.
But, hear me, let the maiden be discharged free and uninjured; return
her to her friends, and let her swear not to discover thy villainy."

"Swear," said Westburnflat; "but what if she break her aith? Women are
not famous for keeping their plight. A wise man like you should ken
that.--And uninjured--wha kens what may happen were she to be left lang
at Tinning-Beck? Charlie Cheat-the-Woodie is a rough customer. But if
the gold could be made up to twenty pieces, I think I could ensure her
being wi' her friends within the twenty-four hours."

The Dwarf took his tablets from his pocket, marked a line on them, and
tore out the leaf. "There," he said, giving the robber the leaf--"But,
mark me; thou knowest I am not to be fooled by thy treachery; if thou
darest to disobey my directions, thy wretched life, be sure, shall
answer it."

"I know," said the fellow, looking down, "that you have power on earth,
however you came by it; you can do what nae other man can do, baith by
physic and foresight; and the gold is shelled down when ye command, as
fast as I have seen the ash-keys fall in a frosty morning in October. I
will not disobey you."

"Begone, then, and relieve me of thy hateful presence."

The robber set spurs to his horse, and rode off without reply.

Hobbie Elliot had, in the meanwhile, pursued his journey rapidly,
harassed by those oppressive and indistinct fears that all was not
right, which men usually term a presentiment of misfortune. Ere he
reached the top of the bank from which he could look down on his own
habitation, he was met by his nurse, a person then of great consequence
in all families in Scotland, whether of the higher or middling classes.
The connexion between them and their foster-children was considered a
tie far too dearly intimate to be broken; and it usually happened, in
the course of years, that the nurse became a resident in the family
of her foster-son, assisting in the domestic duties, and receiving all
marks of attention and regard from the heads of the family. So soon
as Hobbie recognised the figure of Annaple, in her red cloak and black
hood, he could not help exclaiming to himself, "What ill luck can
hae brought the auld nurse sae far frae hame, her that never stirs a
gun-shot frae the door-stane for ordinar?--Hout, it will just be to get
crane-berries, or whortle-berries, or some such stuff, out of the moss,
to make the pies and tarts for the feast on Monday.--I cannot get the
words of that cankered auld cripple deil's-buckie out o' my head--the
least thing makes me dread some ill news.--O, Killbuck, man! were there
nae deer and goats in the country besides, but ye behoved to gang and
worry his creature, by a' other folk's?"

By this time Annaple, with a brow like a tragic volume, had hobbled
towards him, and caught his horse by the bridle. The despair in her look
was so evident as to deprive even him of the power of asking the cause.
"O my bairn!" she cried, "gang na forward--gang na forward--it's a sight
to kill onybody, let alane thee."

"In God's name, what's the matter?" said the astonished horseman,
endeavouring to extricate his bridle from the grasp of the old woman;
"for Heaven's sake, let me go and see what's the matter."

"Ohon! that I should have lived to see the day!--The steading's a' in
a low, and the bonny stack-yard lying in the red ashes, and the gear a'
driven away. But gang na forward; it wad break your young heart, hinny,
to see what my auld een hae seen this morning."

"And who has dared to do this? let go my bridle, Annaple--where is my
grandmother--my sisters?--Where is Grace Armstrong?--God!--the words of
the warlock are knelling in my ears!"

He sprang from his horse to rid himself of Annaple's interruption, and,
ascending the hill with great speed, soon came in view of the spectacle
with which she had threatened him. It was indeed a heart-breaking
sight. The habitation which he had left in its seclusion, beside the
mountain-stream, surrounded with every evidence of rustic plenty, was
now a wasted and blackened ruin. From amongst the shattered and sable
walls the smoke continued to rise. The turf-stack, the barn-yard, the
offices stocked with cattle, all the wealth of an upland cultivator of
the period, of which poor Elliot possessed no common share, had
been laid waste or carried off in a single night. He stood a moment
motionless, and then exclaimed, "I am ruined--ruined to the ground!--But
curse on the warld's gear--Had it not been the week before the
bridal--But I am nae babe, to sit down and greet about it. If I can but
find Grace, and my grandmother, and my sisters weel, I can go to the
wars in Flanders, as my gude-sire did, under the Bellenden banner, wi'
auld Buccleuch. At ony rate, I will keep up a heart, or they will lose
theirs a'thegither."

Manfully strode Hobbie down the hill, resolved to suppress his
own despair, and administer consolation which he did not feel. The
neighbouring inhabitants of the dell, particularly those of his own
name, had already assembled. The younger part were in arms and clamorous
for revenge, although they knew not upon whom; the elder were taking
measures for the relief of the distressed family. Annaple's cottage,
which was situated down the brook, at some distance from the scene of
mischief, had been hastily adapted for the temporary accommodation
of the old lady and her daughters, with such articles as had been
contributed by the neighbours, for very little was saved from the wreck.

"Are we to stand here a' day, sirs," exclaimed one tall young man, "and
look at the burnt wa's of our kinsman's house? Every wreath of the reek
is a blast of shame upon us! Let us to horse, and take the chase.--Who
has the nearest bloodhound?"

"It's young Earnscliff," answered another; "and he's been on and away
wi' six horse lang syne, to see if he can track them."

"Let us follow him then, and raise the country, and mak mair help as
we ride, and then have at the Cumberland reivers! Take, burn, and
slay--they that lie nearest us shall smart first."

"Whisht! haud your tongues, daft callants," said an old man, "ye dinna
ken what ye speak about. What! wad ye raise war atween two pacificated
countries?"

"And what signifies deaving us wi' tales about our fathers," retorted
the young; man, "if we're to sit and see our friends' houses burnt ower
their heads, and no put out hand to revenge them? Our fathers did not do
that, I trow?"

"I am no saying onything against revenging Hobbie's wrang, puir chield;
but we maun take the law wi' us in thae days, Simon," answered the more
prudent elder.

"And besides," said another old man, "I dinna believe there's ane now
living that kens the lawful mode of following a fray across the Border.
Tam o' Whittram kend a' about it; but he died in the hard winter."

"Ay," said a third, "he was at the great gathering, when they chased as
far as Thirlwall; it was the year after the fight of Philiphaugh."

"Hout," exclaimed another of these discording counsellors, "there's nae
great skill needed; just put a lighted peat on the end of a spear, or
hayfork, or siclike, and blaw a horn, and cry the gathering-word, and
then it's lawful to follow gear into England, and recover it by the
strong hand, or to take gear frae some other Englishman, providing ye
lift nae mair than's been lifted frae you. That's the auld Border law,
made at Dundrennan, in the days of the Black Douglas, Deil ane need
doubt it. It's as clear as the sun."

"Come away, then, lads," cried Simon, "get to your geldings, and we'll
take auld Cuddie the muckle tasker wi' us; he kens the value o' the
stock and plenishing that's been lost. Hobbie's stalls and stakes shall
be fou again or night; and if we canna big up the auld house sae soon,
we'se lay an English ane as low as Heugh-foot is--and that's fair play,
a' the warld ower."

This animating proposal was received with great applause by the younger
part of the assemblage, when a whisper ran among them, "There's Hobbie
himsell, puir fallow! we'll be guided by him."

The principal sufferer, having now reached the bottom of the hill,
pushed on through the crowd, unable, from the tumultuous state of his
feelings, to do more than receive and return the grasps of the friendly
hands by which his neighbours and kinsmen mutely expressed their
sympathy in his misfortune. While he pressed Simon of Hackburn's
hand, his anxiety at length found words. "Thank ye, Simon--thank ye,
neighbours--I ken what ye wad a' say. But where are they?--Where are--"
He stopped, as if afraid even to name the objects of his enquiry; and
with a similar feeling, his kinsmen, without reply, pointed to the hut,
into which Hobbie precipitated himself with the desperate air of one who
is resolved to know the worst at once. A general and powerful expression
of sympathy accompanied him. "Ah, puir fallow--puir Hobbie!"

"He'll learn the warst o't now!"

"But I trust Earnscliff will get some speerings o' the puir lassie."

Such were the exclamations of the group, who, having no acknowledged
leader to direct their motions, passively awaited the return of the
sufferer, and determined to be guided by his directions.

The meeting between Hobbie and his family was in the highest degree
affecting. His sisters threw themselves upon him, and almost stifled him
with their caresses, as if to prevent his looking round to distinguish
the absence of one yet more beloved.

"God help thee, my son! He can help when worldly trust is a broken
reed."--Such was the welcome of the matron to her unfortunate grandson.
He looked eagerly round, holding two of his sisters by the hand, while
the third hung about his neck--"I see you--I count you--my grandmother,
Lilias, Jean, and Annot; but where is--" (he hesitated, and then
continued, as if with an effort), "Where is Grace? Surely this is not a
time to hide hersell frae me--there's nae time for daffing now."

"O, brother!" and "Our poor Grace!" was the only answer his questions
could procure, till his grandmother rose up, and gently disengaged
him from the weeping girls, led him to a seat, and with the affecting
serenity which sincere piety, like oil sprinkled on the waves, can throw
over the most acute feelings, she said, "My bairn, when thy grandfather
was killed in the wars, and left me with six orphans around me, with
scarce bread to eat, or a roof to cover us, I had strength,--not of mine
own--but I had strength given me to say, The Lord's will be done!--My
son, our peaceful house was last night broken into by moss-troopers,
armed and masked; they have taken and destroyed all, and carried off our
dear Grace. Pray for strength to say, His will be done!"

"Mother! mother! urge me not--I cannot--not now I am a sinful man, and
of a hardened race. Masked armed--Grace carried off! Gie me my sword,
and my father's knapsack--I will have vengeance, if I should go to the
pit of darkness to seek it!"

"O my bairn, my bairn! be patient under the rod. Who knows when He may
lift His hand off from us? Young Earnscliff, Heaven bless him, has taen
the chase, with Davie of Stenhouse, and the first comers. I cried to let
house and plenishing burn, and follow the reivers to recover Grace, and
Earnscliff and his men were ower the Fell within three hours after the
deed. God bless him! he's a real Earnscliff; he's his father's true
son--a leal friend."

"A true friend indeed; God bless him!" exclaimed Hobbie; "let's on and
away, and take the chase after him."

"O, my child, before you run on danger, let me hear you but say, HIS
will be done!"

"Urge me not, mother--not now." He was rushing out, when, looking back,
he observed his grandmother make a mute attitude of affliction. He
returned hastily, threw himself into her arms, and said, "Yes, mother, I
CAN say, HIS will be done, since it will comfort you."

"May He go forth--may He go forth with you, my dear bairn; and O, may He
give you cause to say on your return, HIS name be praised!"

"Farewell, mother!--farewell, my dear sisters!" exclaimed Elliot, and
rushed out of the house.



CHAPTER VIII.

     Now horse and hattock, cried the Laird,--
     Now horse and hattock, speedilie;
     They that winna ride for Telfer's kye,
     Let them never look in the face o' me.--Border Ballad.

"Horse! horse! and spear!" exclaimed Hobbie to his kinsmen. Many a ready
foot was in the stirrup; and, while Elliot hastily collected arms and
accoutrements, no easy matter in such a confusion, the glen resounded
with the approbation of his younger friends.

"Ay, ay!" exclaimed Simon of Hackburn, "that's the gate to take it,
Hobbie. Let women sit and greet at hame, men must do as they have been
done by; it's the Scripture says't."

"Haud your tongue, sir," said one of the seniors, sternly; "dinna abuse
the Word that gate, ye dinna ken what ye speak about."

"Hae ye ony tidings?--Hae ye ony speerings, Hobbie?--O, callants, dinna
be ower hasty," said old Dick of the Dingle.

"What signifies preaching to us, e'enow?" said Simon; "if ye canna make
help yoursell, dinna keep back them that can."

"Whisht, sir; wad ye take vengeance or ye ken wha has wrang'd ye?"

"D'ye think we dinna ken the road to England as weel as our fathers
before us?--All evil comes out o' thereaway--it's an auld saying and a
true; and we'll e'en away there, as if the devil was blawing us south."

"We'll follow the track o' Earnscliff's horses ower the waste," cried
one Elliot.

"I'll prick them out through the blindest moor in the Border, an there
had been a fair held there the day before," said Hugh, the blacksmith of
Ringleburn, "for I aye shoe his horse wi' my ain hand."

"Lay on the deer-hounds," cried another "where are they?"

"Hout, man, the sun's been lang up, and the dew is aff the grund--the
scent will never lie."

Hobbie instantly whistled on his hounds, which were roving about the
ruins of their old habitation, and filling the air with their doleful
howls.

"Now, Killbuck," said Hobbie, "try thy skill this day," and then, as if a
light had suddenly broke on him,--"that ill-faur'd goblin spak something
o' this! He may ken mair o't, either by villains on earth, or devils
below--I'll hae it frae him, if I should cut it out o' his mis-shapen
bouk wi' my whinger." He then hastily gave directions to his comrades:
"Four o' ye, wi' Simon, haud right forward to Graeme's-gap. If they're
English, they'll be for being back that way. The rest disperse
by twasome and threesome through the waste, and meet me at the
Trysting-pool. Tell my brothers, when they come up, to follow and meet
us there. Poor lads, they will hae hearts weelnigh as sair as mine;
little think they what a sorrowful house they are bringing their venison
to! I'll ride ower Mucklestane-Moor mysell."

"And if I were you," said Dick of the Dingle, "I would speak to Canny
Elshie. He can tell you whatever betides in this land, if he's sae
minded."

"He SHALL tell me," said Hobbie, who was busy putting his arms in order,
"what he kens o' this night's job, or I shall right weel ken wherefore
he does not."

"Ay, but speak him fair, my bonny man--speak him fair Hobbie; the
like o' him will no bear thrawing. They converse sae muckle wi' thae
fractious ghaists and evil spirits, that it clean spoils their temper."

"Let me alane to guide him," answered Hobbie; "there's that in my breast
this day, that would ower-maister a' the warlocks on earth, and a' the
devils in hell."

And being now fully equipped, he threw himself on his horse, and spurred
him at a rapid pace against the steep ascent.

Elliot speedily surmounted the hill, rode down the other side at the
same rate, crossed a wood, and traversed a long glen, ere he at length
regained Mucklestane-Moor. As he was obliged, in the course of his
journey, to relax his speed in consideration of the labour which his
horse might still have to undergo, he had time to consider maturely in
what manner he should address the Dwarf, in order to extract from him
the knowledge which he supposed him to be in possession of concerning
the authors of his misfortunes. Hobbie, though blunt, plain of speech,
and hot of disposition, like most of his countrymen, was by no means
deficient in the shrewdness which is also their characteristic. He
reflected, that from what he had observed on the memorable night when
the Dwarf was first seen, and from the conduct of that mysterious being
ever since, he was likely to be rendered even more obstinate in his
sullenness by threats and violence.

"I'll speak him fair," he said, "as auld Dickon advised me. Though folk
say he has a league wi' Satan, he canna be sic an incarnate devil as no
to take some pity in a case like mine; and folk threep he'll whiles do
good, charitable sort o' things. I'll keep my heart doun as weel as I
can, and stroke him wi' the hair; and if the warst come to the warst,
it's but wringing the head o' him about at last."

In this disposition of accommodation he approached the hut of the
Solitary.

The old man was not upon his seat of audience, nor could Hobbie perceive
him in his garden, or enclosures.

"He's gotten into his very keep," said Hobbie, "maybe to be out o'
the gate; but I'se pu' it doun about his lugs, if I canna win at him
otherwise."

Having thus communed with himself, he raised his voice, and invoked
Elshie in a tone as supplicating as his conflicting feelings would
permit. "Elshie, my gude friend!" No reply. "Elshie, canny Father
Elshie!" The Dwarf remained mute. "Sorrow be in the crooked carcass of
thee!" said the Borderer between his teeth; and then again attempting a
soothing tone,--"Good Father Elshie, a most miserable creature desires
some counsel of your wisdom."