The Black Dwarf.................................................................................................................................................1

Walter Scott.............................................................................................................................................1

I. TALES OF MY LANDLORD............................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................1

II. INTRODUCTION to THE BLACK DWARF. ..............................................................................4

III. THE BLACK DWARF. ....................................................................................................................7

CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. ...............................................................................................................7

CHAPTER II. .........................................................................................................................................10

CHAPTER III........................................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER IV........................................................................................................................................19

CHAPTER V.........................................................................................................................................25

CHAPTER VI........................................................................................................................................30

CHAPTER VII. ......................................................................................................................................32

CHAPTER VIII.....................................................................................................................................38

CHAPTER IX........................................................................................................................................42

CHAPTER X.........................................................................................................................................47

CHAPTER XI........................................................................................................................................53

CHAPTER XII. ......................................................................................................................................57

CHAPTER XIII.....................................................................................................................................61

CHAPTER XIV.....................................................................................................................................68

CHAPTER XV......................................................................................................................................72

CHAPTER XVI.....................................................................................................................................77

CHAPTER XVII. ...................................................................................................................................81

CHAPTER XVIII. ..................................................................................................................................85

As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and official description prefixed to this Proem will secure it,

from the sedate and reflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to address myself, such

attention as is due to the sedulous instructor of youth, and the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will

forbear to hold up a candle to the daylight, or to point out to the judicious those recommendations of my

labours which they must necessarily anticipate from the perusal of the titlepage. Nevertheless, I am not

unaware, that, as Envy always dogs Merit at the heels, there may be those who will whisper, that albeit my

learning and good principles cannot (lauded be the heavens) be denied by any one, yet that my situation at

Gandercleugh hath been more favourable to my acquisitions in learning than to the enlargement of my views

of the ways and works of the present generation. To the which objection, if, peradventure, any such shall be

First, Gandercleugh is, as it were, the central partthe navel (SI FAS SIT DICERE) of this our native realm

of Scotland; so that men, from every corner thereof, when travelling on their concernments of business, either

towards our metropolis of law, by which I mean Edinburgh, or towards our metropolis and mart of gain,

whereby I insinuate Glasgow, are frequently led to make Gandercleugh their abiding stage and place of rest

for the night. And it must be acknowledged by the most sceptical, that I, who have sat in the leathern

armchair, on the lefthand side of the fire, in the common room of the Wallace Inn, winter and summer, for

every evening in my life, during forty years bypast (the Christian Sabbaths only excepted), must have seen

more of the manners and customs of various tribes and people, than if I had sought them out by my own

painful travel and bodily labour. Even so doth the tollman at the wellfrequented turnpike on the

Wellbraehead, sitting at his ease in his own dwelling, gather more receipt of custom, than if, moving forth

upon the road, he were to require a contribution from each person whom he chanced to meet in his journey,

when, according to the vulgar adage, he might possibly be greeted with more kicks than halfpence.

But, secondly, supposing it again urged, that Ithacus, the most wise of the Greeks, acquired his renown, as the

Roman poet hath assured us, by visiting states and men, I reply to the Zoilus who shall adhere to this

objection, that, DE FACTO, I have seen states and men also; for I have visited the famous cities of Edinburgh

and Glasgow, the former twice, and the latter three times, in the course of my earthly pilgrimage. And,

moreover, I had the honour to sit in the General Assembly (meaning, as an auditor, in the galleries thereof),

and have heard as much goodly speaking on the law of patronage, as, with the fructification thereof in mine

own understanding, hath made me be considered as an oracle upon that doctrine ever since my safe and

Againand thirdly, If it be nevertheless pretended that my information and knowledge of mankind, however

extensive, and however painfully acquired, by constant domestic enquiry, and by foreign travel, is, natheless,

incompetent to the task of recording the pleasant narratives of my Landlord, I will let these critics know, to

their own eternal shame and confusion as well as to the abashment and discomfiture of all who shall rashly

take up a song against me, that I am NOT the writer, redacter, or compiler, of the Tales of my Landlord; nor

am I, in one single iota, answerable for their contents, more or less. And now, ye generation of critics, who

raise yourselves up as if it were brazen serpents, to hiss with your tongues, and to smite with your stings, bow

yourselves down to your native dust, and acknowledge that yours have been the thoughts of ignorance, and

the words of vain foolishness. Lo! ye are caught in your own snare, and your own pit hath yawned for you.

Turn, then, aside from the task that is too heavy for you; destroy not your teeth by gnawing a file; waste not

your strength by spurning against a castle wall; nor spend your breath in contending in swiftness with a fleet

steed; and let those weigh the Tales of my Landlord, who shall bring with them the scales of candour

cleansed from the rust of prejudice by the hands of intelligent modesty. For these alone they were compiled,

as will appear from a brief narrative which my zeal for truth compelled me to make supplementary to the

It is well known that my Landlord was a pleasing and a facetious man, acceptable unto all the parish of

Gandercleugh, excepting only the Laird, the Exciseman, and those for whom he refused to draw liquor upon

trust. Their causes of dislike I will touch separately, adding my own refutation thereof.

His honour, the Laird, accused our Landlord, deceased, of having encouraged, in various times and places,

the destruction of hares, rabbits, fowls black and grey, partridges, moorpouts, roedeer, and other birds and

quadrupeds, at unlawful seasons, and contrary to the laws of this realm, which have secured, in their wisdom,

the slaughter of such animals for the great of the earth, whom I have remarked to take an uncommon (though

to me, an unintelligible) pleasure therein. Now, in humble deference to his honour, and in justifiable defence

of my friend deceased, I reply to this charge, that howsoever the form of such animals might appear to be

similar to those so protected by the law, yet it was a mere DECEPTIO VISUS; for what resembled hares

were, in fact, HILLKIDS, and those partaking of the appearance of moor fowl, were truly WOOD

Again, the Exciseman pretended, that my deceased Landlord did encourage that species of manufacture

called distillation, without having an especial permission from the Great, technically called a license, for

doing so. Now, I stand up to confront this falsehood; and in defiance of him, his gaugingstick, and pen and

inkhorn, I tell him, that I never saw, or tasted, a glass of unlawful aqua vitae in the house of my Landlord;

nay, that, on the contrary, we needed not such devices, in respect of a pleasing and somewhat seductive

liquor, which was vended and consumed at the Wallace Inn, under the name of MOUNTAIN DEW. If there

is a penalty against manufacturing such a liquor, let him show me the statute; and when he does, I'll tell him

Concerning those who came to my Landlord for liquor, and went thirsty away, for lack of present coin, or

future credit, I cannot but say it has grieved my bowels as if the case had been mine own. Nevertheless, my

Landlord considered the necessities of a thirsty soul, and would permit them, in extreme need, and when their

soul was impoverished for lack of moisture, to drink to the full value of their watches and wearing apparel,

exclusively of their inferior habiliments, which he was uniformly inexorable in obliging them to retain, for

the credit of the house. As to mine own part, I may well say, that he never refused me that modicum of

refreshment with which I am wont to recruit nature after the fatigues of my school. It is true, I taught his five

sons English and Latin, writing, bookkeeping, with a tincture of mathematics, and that I instructed his

daughter in psalmody. Nor do I remember me of any fee or HONORARIUM received from him on account

of these my labours, except the compotations aforesaid. Nevertheless this compensation suited my humour

But, truly, were I to speak my simple conceit and belief, I think my Landlord was chiefly moved to waive in

my behalf the usual requisition of a symbol, or reckoning, from the pleasure he was wont to take in my

conversation, which, though solid and edifying in the main, was, like a wellbuilt palace, decorated with

facetious narratives and devices, tending much to the enhancement and ornament thereof. And so pleased was

my Landlord of the Wallace in his replies during such colloquies, that there was no district in Scotland, yea,

and no peculiar, and, as it were, distinctive custom therein practised, but was discussed betwixt us; insomuch,

that those who stood by were wont to say, it was worth a bottle of ale to hear us communicate with each

other. And not a few travellers, from distant parts, as well as from the remote districts of our kingdom, were

wont to mingle in the conversation, and to tell news that had been gathered in foreign lands, or preserved

Now I chanced to have contracted for teaching the lower classes with a young person called Peter, or Patrick,

Pattieson, who had been educated for our Holy Kirk, yea, had, by the license of presbytery, his voice opened

therein as a preacher, who delighted in the collection of olden tales and legends, and in garnishing them with

the flowers of poesy, whereof he was a vain and frivolous professor. For he followed not the example of

those strong poets whom I preposed to him as a pattern, but formed versification of a flimsy and modern

texture, to the compounding whereof was necessary small pains and less thought. And hence I have chid him

as being one of those who bring forward the fatal revolution prophesied by Mr. Robert Carey, in his

I had also disputations with him touching his indulging rather a flowing and redundant than a concise and

stately diction in his prose exercitations. But notwithstanding these symptoms of inferior taste, and a humour

of contradicting his betters upon passages of dubious construction in Latin authors, I did grievously lament

when Peter Pattieson was removed from me by death, even as if he had been the offspring of my own loins.

And in respect his papers had been left in my care (to answer funeral and deathbed expenses), I conceived

myself entitled to dispose of one parcel thereof, entitled, "Tales of my Landlord," to one cunning in the trade

(as it is called) of bookselling. He was a mirthful man, of small stature, cunning in counterfeiting of voices,

and in making facetious tales and responses, and whom I have to laud for the truth of his dealings towards

Now, therefore, the world may see the injustice that charges me with incapacity to write these narratives,

seeing, that though I have proved that I could have written them if I would, yet, not having done so, the

censure will deservedly fall, if at all due, upon the memory of Mr. Peter Pattieson; whereas I must be justly

entitled to the praise, when any is due, seeing that, as the Dean of St. Patrick's wittily and logically expresseth

The work, therefore, is unto me as a child is to a parent; in the which child, if it proveth worthy, the parent

hath honour and praise; but, if otherwise, the disgrace will deservedly attach to itself alone.

I have only further to intimate, that Mr. Peter Pattieson, in arranging these Tales for the press, hath more

consulted his own fancy than the accuracy of the narrative; nay, that he hath sometimes blended two or three

stories together for the mere grace of his plots. Of which infidelity, although I disapprove and enter my

testimony against it, yet I have not taken upon me to correct the same, in respect it was the will of the

deceased, that his manuscript should be submitted to the press without diminution or alteration. A fanciful

nicety it was on the part of my deceased friend, who, if thinking wisely, ought rather to have conjured me, by

all the tender ties of our friendship and common pursuits, to have carefully revised, altered, and augmented,

at my judgment and discretion. But the will of the dead must be scrupulously obeyed, even when we weep

over their pertinacity and selfdelusion. So, gentle reader, I bid you farewell, recommending you to such fare

as the mountains of your own country produce; and I will only farther premise, that each Tale is preceded by

a short introduction, mentioning the persons by whom, and the circumstances under which, the materials

The ideal being who is here presented as residing in solitude, and haunted by a consciousness of his own

deformity, and a suspicion of his being generally subjected to the scorn of his fellowmen, is not altogether

imaginary. An individual existed many years since, under the author's observation, which suggested such a

character. This poor unfortunate man's name was David Ritchie, a native of Tweeddale. He was the son of a

labourer in the slatequarries of Stobo, and must have been born in the misshapen form which he exhibited,

though he sometimes imputed it to illusage when in infancy. He was bred a brushmaker at Edinburgh, and

had wandered to several places, working at his trade, from all which he was chased by the disagreeable

attention which his hideous singularity of form and face attracted wherever he came. The author understood

Tired at length of being the object of shouts, laughter, and derision, David Ritchie resolved, like a deer

hunted from the herd, to retreat to some wilderness, where he might have the least possible communication

with the world which scoffed at him. He settled himself, with this view, upon a patch of wild moorland at the

bottom of a bank on the farm of Woodhouse, in the sequestered vale of the small river Manor, in

Peeblesshire. The few people who had occasion to pass that way were much surprised, and some superstitious

persons a little alarmed, to see so strange a figure as Bow'd Davie (i.e. Crooked David) employed in a task,

for which he seemed so totally unfit, as that of erecting a house. The cottage which he built was extremely

small, but the walls, as well as those of a little garden that surrounded it, were constructed with an ambitious

degree of solidity, being composed of layers of large stones and turf; and some of the corner stones were so

weighty, as to puzzle the spectators how such a person as the architect could possibly have raised them. In

fact, David received from passengers, or those who came attracted by curiosity, a good deal of assistance; and

as no one knew how much aid had been given by others, the wonder of each individual remained

The proprietor of the ground, the late Sir James Naesmith, baronet, chanced to pass this singular dwelling,

which, having been placed there without right or leave asked or given, formed an exact parallel with Falstaff's

simile of a "fair house built on another's ground;" so that poor David might have lost his edifice by mistaking

the property where he had erected it. Of course, the proprietor entertained no idea of exacting such a

The personal description of Elshender of MucklestaneMoor has been generally allowed to be a tolerably

exact and unexaggerated portrait of David of Manor Water. He was not quite three feet and a half high, since

he could stand upright in the door of his mansion, which was just that height. The following particulars

concerning his figure and temper occur in the SCOTS MAGAZINE for 1817, and are now understood to

have been communicated by the ingenious Mr. Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, who has recorded with much

spirit the traditions of the Good Town, and, in other publications, largely and agreeably added to the stock of

our popular antiquities. He is the countryman of David Ritchie, and had the best access to collect anecdotes

"His skull," says this authority, "which was of an oblong and rather unusual shape, was said to be of such

strength, that he could strike it with ease through the panel of a door, or the end of a barrel. His laugh is said

to have been quite horrible; and his screechowl voice, shrill, uncouth, and dissonant, corresponded well with

"There was nothing very uncommon about his dress. He usually wore an old slouched hat when he went

abroad; and when at home, a sort of cowl or nightcap. He never wore shoes, being unable to adapt them to

his misshapen finlike feet, but always had both feet and legs quite concealed, and wrapt up with pieces of

cloth. He always walked with a sort of pole or pikestaff, considerably taller than himself. His habits were, in

many respects, singular, and indicated a mind congenial to its uncouth tabernacle. A jealous, misanthropical,

and irritable temper, was his prominent characteristic. The sense of his deformity haunted him like a

phantom. And the insults and scorn to which this exposed him, had poisoned his heart with fierce and bitter

feelings, which, from other points in his character, do not appear to have been more largely infused into his

"He detested children, on account of their propensity to insult and persecute him. To strangers he was

generally reserved, crabbed, and surly; and though he by no means refused assistance or charity, he seldom

either expressed or exhibited much gratitude. Even towards persons who had been his greatest benefactors,

and who possessed the greatest share of his good will, he frequently displayed much caprice and jealousy. A

lady who had known him from his infancy, and who has furnished us in the most obliging manner with some

particulars respecting him, says, that although Davie showed as much respect and attachment to her father's

family, as it was in his nature to show to any, yet they were always obliged to be very cautious in their

deportment towards him. One day, having gone to visit him with another lady, he took them through his

garden, and was showing them, with much pride and goodhumour, all his rich and tastefully assorted

borders, when they happened to stop near a plot of cabbages which had been somewhat injured by the

caterpillars. Davie, observing one of the ladies smile, instantly assumed his savage, scowling aspect, rushed

among the cabbages, and dashed them to pieces with his KENT, exclaiming, 'I hate the worms, for they mock

"Another lady, likewise a friend and old acquaintance of his, very unintentionally gave David mortal offence

on a similar occasion. Throwing back his jealous glance as he was ushering her into his garden, he fancied he

observed her spit, and exclaimed, with great ferocity, 'Am I a toad, woman! that ye spit at methat ye spit at

me?' and without listening to any answer or excuse, drove her out of his garden with imprecations and insult.

When irritated by persons for whom he entertained little respect, his misanthropy displayed itself in words,

and sometimes in actions, of still greater rudeness; and he used on such occasions the most unusual and

singularly savage imprecations and threats." [SCOTS MAGAZINE, vol. lxxx. p.207.]

Nature maintains a certain balance of good and evil in all her works; and there is no state perhaps so utterly

desolate, which does not possess some source of gratification peculiar to itself, This poor man, whose

misanthropy was founded in a sense on his own preternatural deformity, had yet his own particular

enjoyments. Driven into solitude, he became an admirer of the beauties of nature. His garden, which he

sedulously cultivated, and from a piece of wild moorland made a very productive spot, was his pride and his

delight; but he was also an admirer of more natural beauty: the soft sweep of the green hill, the bubbling of a

clear fountain, or the complexities of a wild thicket, were scenes on which he often gazed for hours, and, as

he said, with inexpressible delight. It was perhaps for this reason that he was fond of Shenstone's pastorals,

and some parts of PARADISE LOST. The author has heard his most unmusical voice repeat the celebrated

description of Paradise, which he seemed fully to appreciate. His other studies were of a different cast,

chiefly polemical. He never went to the parish church, and was therefore suspected of entertaining heterodox

opinions, though his objection was probably to the concourse of spectators, to whom he must have exposed

his unseemly deformity. He spoke of a future state with intense feeling, and even with tears. He expressed

disgust at the idea, of his remains being mixed with the common rubbish, as he called it, of the churchyard,

and selected with his usual taste a beautiful and wild spot in the glen where he had his hermitage, in which to

take his last repose. He changed his mind, however, and was finally interred in the common burial ground

The author has invested Wise Elshie with some qualities which made him appear, in the eyes of the vulgar, a

man possessed of supernatural power. Common fame paid David Ritchie a similar compliment, for some of

the poor and ignorant, as well as all the children, in the neighbourhood, held him to be what is called

uncanny. He himself did not altogether discourage the idea; it enlarged his very limited circle of power, and

in so far gratified his conceit; and it soothed his misanthropy, by increasing his means of giving terror or

pain. But even in a rude Scottish glen thirty years back, the fear of sorcery was very much out of date.

David Ritchie affected to frequent solitary scenes, especially such as were supposed to be haunted, and

valued himself upon his courage in doing so. To be sure he had little chance of meeting anything more ugly

than himself. At heart, he was superstitious, and planted many rowans (mountain ashes) around his hut, as a

certain defence against necromancy. For the same reason, doubtless, he desired to have rowantrees set

We have stated that David Ritchie loved objects of natural beauty. His only living favourites were a dog and

a cat, to which he was particularly attached, and his bees, which he treated with great care. He took a sister,

latterly, to live in a hut adjacent to his own, but he did not permit her to enter it. She was weak in intellect,

but not deformed in person; simple, or rather silly, but not, like her brother, sullen or bizarre. David was

never affectionate to her; it was not in his nature; but he endured her. He maintained himself and her by the

sale of the product of their garden and beehives; and, latterly, they had a small allowance from the parish.

Indeed, in the simple and patriarchal state in which the country then was, persons in the situation of David

and his sister were sure to be supported. They had only to apply to the next gentleman or respectable farmer,

and were sure to find them equally ready and willing to supply their very moderate wants. David often

received gratuities from strangers, which he never asked, never refused, and never seemed to consider as an

obligation. He had a right, indeed, to regard himself as one of Nature's paupers, to whom she gave a title to be

maintained by his kind, even by that deformity which closed against him all ordinary ways of supporting

himself by his own labour. Besides, a bag was suspended in the mill for David Ritchie's benefit; and those

who were carrying home a melder of meal, seldom failed to add a GOWPEN [Handful] to the almsbag of

the deformed cripple. In short, David had no occasion for money, save to purchase snuff, his only luxury, in

which he indulged himself liberally. When he died, in the beginning of the present century, he was found to

have hoarded about twenty pounds, a habit very consistent with his disposition; for wealth is power, and

power was what David Ritchie desired to possess, as a compensation for his exclusion from human society.

His sister survived till the publication of the tale to which this brief notice forms the introduction; and the

author is sorry to learn that a sort of "local sympathy," and the curiosity then expressed concerning the

Author of WAVERLEY and the subjects of his Novels, exposed the poor woman to enquiries which gave her

pain. When pressed about her brother's peculiarities, she asked, in her turn, why they would not permit the

dead to rest? To others, who pressed for some account of her parents, she answered in the same tone of

The author saw this poor, and, it may be said, unhappy man, in autumn 1797 being then, as he has the

happiness still to remain, connected by ties of intimate friendship with the family of the venerable Dr. Adam

Fergusson, the philosopher and historian, who then resided at the mansionhouse of Halyards, in the vale of

Manor, about a mile from Ritchie's hermitage, the author was upon a visit at Halyards, which lasted for

several days, and was made acquainted with this singular anchorite, whom Dr. Fergusson considered as an

extraordinary character, and whom he assisted in various ways, particularly by the occasional loan of books.

Though the taste of the philosopher and the poor peasant did not, it may be supposed, always correspond, [I

remember David was particularly anxious to see a book, which he called, I think, LETTERS TO ELECT

LADIES, and which, he said, was the best composition he had ever read; but Dr. Fergusson's library did not

supply the volume.] Dr. Fergusson considered him as a man of a powerful capacity and original ideas, but

whose mind was thrown off its just bias by a predominant degree of selflove and self opinion, galled by

the sense of ridicule and contempt, and avenging itself upon society, in idea at least, by a gloomy

David Ritchie, besides the utter obscurity of his life while in existence, had been dead for many years, when

it occurred to the author that such a character might be made a powerful agent in fictitious narrative. He,

accordingly, sketched that of Elshie of the MucklestaneMoor. The story was intended to be longer, and the

catastrophe more artificially brought out; but a friendly critic, to whose opinion I subjected the work in its

progress, was of opinion, that the idea of the Solitary was of a kind too revolting, and more likely to disgust

than to interest the reader. As I had good right to consider my adviser as an excellent judge of public opinion,

I got off my subject by hastening the story to an end, as fast as it was possible; and, by huddling into one

volume, a tale which was designed to occupy two, have perhaps produced a narrative as much

It was a fine April morning (excepting that it had snowed hard the night before, and the ground remained

covered with a dazzling mantle of six inches in depth) when two horsemen rode up to the Wallace Inn. The

first was a strong, tall, powerful man, in a grey ridingcoat, having a hat covered with waxcloth, a huge

silvermounted horsewhip, boots, and dreadnought overalls. He was mounted on a large strong brown mare,

rough in coat, but well in condition, with a saddle of the yeomanry cut, and a double bitted military bridle.

The man who accompanied him was apparently his servant; he rode a shaggy little grey pony, had a blue

bonnet on his head, and a large check napkin folded about his neck, wore a pair of long blue worsted hose

instead of boots, had his gloveless hands much stained with tar, and observed an air of deference and respect

towards his companion, but without any of those indications of precedence and punctilio which are preserved

between the gentry and their domestics. On the contrary, the two travellers entered the courtyard abreast,

and the concluding sentence of the conversation which had been carrying on betwixt them was a joint

ejaculation, "Lord guide us, an this weather last, what will come o' the lambs!" The hint was sufficient for my

Landlord, who, advancing to take the horse of the principal person, and holding him by the reins as he

dismounted, while his ostler rendered the same service to the attendant, welcomed the stranger to

Gandercleugh, and, in the same breath, enquired, "What news from the south hielands?"

"News?" said the farmer, "bad eneugh news, I think;an we can carry through the yowes, it will be a' we

"Ay, ay," subjoined the old shepherd (for such he was), shaking his head, "he'll be unco busy amang the

"The Black Dwarf!" said MY LEARNED FRIEND AND PATRON, Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, "and what

[We have, in this and other instances, printed in italics (CAPITALS in this etext) some few words which the

worthy editor, Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, seems to have interpolated upon the text of his deceased friend,

Mr. Pattieson. We must observe, once for all, that such liberties seem only to have been taken by the learned

gentleman where his own character and conduct are concerned; and surely he must be the best judge of the

"Hout awa, man," answered the farmer, "ye'll hae heard o' Canny Elshie the Black Dwarf, or I am muckle

mistaenA' the warld tells tales about him, but it's but daft nonsense after a'I dinna believe a word o't frae

"Your father believed it unco stievely, though," said the old man, to whom the scepticism of his master gave

"Ay, very true, Bauldie, but that was in the time o' the blackfacesthey believed a hantle queer things in

"The mair's the pity, the mair's the pity," said the old man. "Your father, and sae I have aften tell'd ye,

maister, wad hae been sair vexed to hae seen the auld peelhouse wa's pu'd down to make park dykes; and

the bonny broomy knowe, where he liked sae weel to sit at e'en, wi' his plaid about him, and look at the kye

as they cam down the loaning, ill wad he hae liked to hae seen that braw sunny knowe a' riven out wi' the

"Hout, Bauldie," replied the principal, "tak ye that dram the landlord's offering ye, and never fash your head

"Wussing your health, sirs," said the shepherd; and having taken off his glass, and observed the whisky was

the right thing, he continued, "It's no for the like o' us to be judging, to be sure; but it was a bonny knowe that

broomy knowe, and an unco braw shelter for the lambs in a severe morning like this."

"Ay," said his patron, "but ye ken we maun hae turnips for the lang sheep, billie, and muckle hard wark to get

them, baith wi' the pleugh and the howe; and that wad sort ill wi' sitting on the broomy knowe, and cracking

about Black Dwarfs, and siccan clavers, as was the gate lang syne, when the short sheep were in the fashion."

"Aweel, aweel, maister," said the attendant, "short sheep had short rents, I'm thinking."

Here my WORTHY AND LEARNED patron again interposed, and observed, "that he could never perceive

This occasioned a loud hoarse laugh on the part of the farmer, and an astonished stare on the part of the

"It's the woo', man,it's the woo', and no the beasts themsells, that makes them be ca'd lang or short. I

believe if ye were to measure their backs, the short sheep wad be rather the langer bodied o' the twa; but it's

"Odd, Bauldie says very true,short sheep did make short rents my father paid for our steading just

threescore punds, and it stands me in three hundred, plack and bawbee.And that's very trueI hae nae

time to be standing here claveringLandlord, get us our breakfast, and see an' get the yauds fedI am for

doun to Christy Wilson's, to see if him and me can gree about the luckpenny I am to gie him for his

yearaulds. We had drank sax mutchkins to the making the bargain at St. Boswell's fair, and some gate we

canna gree upon the particulars preceesely, for as muckle time as we took about itI doubt we draw to a

pleaBut hear ye, neighbour," addressing my WORTHY AND LEARNED patron, "if ye want to hear

onything about lang or short sheep, I will be back here to my kail against ane o'clock; or, if ye want ony

auldwarld stories about the Black Dwarf, and siclike, if ye'll ware a half mutchkin upon Bauldie there, he'll

crack t'ye like a pengun. And I'se gie ye a mutchkin mysell, man, if I can settle weel wi' Christy Wilson."

The farmer returned at the hour appointed, and with him came Christy Wilson, their difference having been

fortunately settled without an appeal to the gentlemen of the long robe. My LEARNED AND WORTHY

patron failed not to attend, both on account of the refreshment promised to the mind and to the body,

the party, with which my Landlord was associated, continued to sit late in the evening, seasoning their liquor

with many choice tales and songs. The last incident which I recollect, was my LEARNED AND WORTHY

patron falling from his chair, just as he concluded a long lecture upon temperance, by reciting, from the

"Gentle Shepherd," a couplet, which he RIGHT HAPPILY transferred from the vice of avarice to that of

He that has just eneugh may soundly sleep, The owercome only fashes folk to keep.

In the course of the evening the Black Dwarf had not been forgotten, and the old shepherd, Bauldie, told so

many stories of him, that they excited a good deal of interest. It also appeared, though not till the third

punchbowl was emptied, that much of the farmer's scepticism on the subject was affected, as evincing a

liberality of thinking, and a freedom from ancient prejudices, becoming a man who paid three hundred

pounds ayear of rent, while, in fact, he had a lurking belief in the traditions of his forefathers. After my

usual manner, I made farther enquiries of other persons connected with the wild and pastoral district in which

the scene of the following narrative is placed, and I was fortunate enough to recover many links of the story,

not generally known, and which account, at least in some degree, for the circumstances of exaggerated

[The Black Dwarf, now almost forgotten, was once held a formidable personage by the dalesmen of the

Border, where he got the blame of whatever mischief befell the sheep or cattle. "He was," says Dr. Leyden,

who makes considerable use of him in the ballad called the Cowt of Keeldar, "a fairy of the most malignant

orderthe genuine Northern Duergar." The best and most authentic account of this dangerous and

mysterious being occurs in a tale communicated to the author by that eminent antiquary, Richard Surtees,

According to this wellattested legend, two young Northumbrians were out on a shooting party, and had

plunged deep among the mountainous moorlands which border on Cumberland. They stopped for

refreshment in a little secluded dell by the side of a rivulet. There, after they had partaken of such food as

they brought with them, one of the party fell asleep; the other, unwilling to disturb his friend's repose, stole

silently out of the dell with the purpose of looking around him, when he was astonished to find himself close

to a being who seemed not to belong to this world, as he was the most hideous dwarf that the sun had ever

shone on. His head was of full human size, forming a frightful contrast with his height, which was

considerably under four feet. It was thatched with no other covering than long matted red hair, like that of the

felt of a badger in consistence, and in colour a reddish brown, like the hue of the heatherblossom. His limbs

seemed of great strength; nor was he otherwise deformed than from their undue proportion in thickness to his

diminutive height. The terrified sportsman stood gazing on this horrible apparition, until, with an angry

countenance, the being demanded by what right he intruded himself on those hills, and destroyed their

harmless inhabitants. The perplexed stranger endeavoured to propitiate the incensed dwarf, by offering to

surrender his game, as he would to an earthly Lord of the Manor. The proposal only redoubled the offence

already taken by the dwarf, who alleged that he was the lord of those mountains, and the protector of the wild

creatures who found a retreat in their solitary recesses; and that all spoils derived from their death, or misery,

were abhorrent to him. The hunter humbled himself before the angry goblin, and by protestations of his

ignorance, and of his resolution to abstain from such intrusion in future, at last succeeded in pacifying him.

The gnome now became more communicative, and spoke of himself as belonging to a species of beings

something between the angelic race and humanity. He added, moreover, which could hardly have been

anticipated, that he had hopes of sharing in the redemption of the race of Adam. He pressed the sportsman to

visit his dwelling, which he said was hard by, and plighted his faith for his safe return. But at this moment,

the shout of the sportsman's companion was heard calling for his friend, and the dwarf, as if unwilling that

more than one person should be cognisant of his presence, disappeared as the young man emerged from the

It was the universal opinion of those most experienced in such matters, that if the shooter had accompanied

the spirit, he would, notwithstanding the dwarf's fair pretences, have been either torn to pieces, or immured

Such is the last and most authentic account of the apparition of the Black Dwarf.]

In one of the most remote districts of the south of Scotland, where an ideal line, drawn along the tops of lofty

and bleak mountains, separates that land from her sister kingdom, a young man, called Halbert, or Hobbie

Elliot, a substantial farmer, who boasted his descent from old Martin Elliot of the Preakintower, noted in

Border story and song, was on his return from deer stalking. The deer, once so numerous among these

solitary wastes, were now reduced to a very few herds, which, sheltering themselves in the most remote and

inaccessible recesses, rendered the task of pursuing them equally toilsome and precarious. There were,

however, found many youth of the country ardently attached to this sport, with all its dangers and fatigues.

The sword had been sheathed upon the Borders for more than a hundred years, by the peaceful union of the

crowns in the reign of James the First of Great Britain. Still the country retained traces of what it had been in

former days; the inhabitants, their more peaceful avocations having been repeatedly interrupted by the civil

wars of the preceding century, were scarce yet broken in to the habits of regular industry, sheepfarming had

not been introduced upon any considerable scale, and the feeding of black cattle was the chief purpose to

which the hills and valleys were applied. Near to the farmer's house, the tenant usually contrived to raise such

a crop of oats or barley, as afforded meal for his family; and the whole of this slovenly and imperfect mode of

cultivation left much time upon his own hands, and those of his domestics. This was usually employed by the

young men in hunting and fishing; and the spirit of adventure, which formerly led to raids and forays in the

same districts, was still to be discovered in the eagerness with which they pursued those rural sports.

The more highspirited among the youth were, about the time that our narrative begins, expecting, rather

with hope than apprehension, an opportunity of emulating their fathers in their military achievements, the

recital of which formed the chief part of their amusement within doors. The passing of the Scottish act of

security had given the alarm of England, as it seemed to point at a separation of the two British kingdoms,

after the decease of Queen Anne, the reigning sovereign. Godolphin, then at the head of the English

administration, foresaw that there was no other mode of avoiding the probable extremity of a civil war, but by

carrying through an incorporating union. How that treaty was managed, and how little it seemed for some

time to promise the beneficial results which have since taken place to such extent, may be learned from the

history of the period. It is enough for our purpose to say, that all Scotland was indignant at the terms on

which their legislature had surrendered their national independence. The general resentment led to the

strangest leagues and to the wildest plans. The Cameronians were about to take arms for the restoration of the

house of Stewart, whom they regarded, with justice, as their oppressors; and the intrigues of the period

presented the strange picture of papists, prelatists, and presbyterians, caballing among themselves against the

English government, out of a common feeling that their country had been treated with injustice. The

fermentation was universal; and, as the population of Scotland had been generally trained to arms, under the

act of security, they were not indifferently prepared for war, and waited but the declaration of some of the

nobility to break out into open hostility. It was at this period of public confusion that our story opens.

The cleugh, or wild ravine, into which Hobbie Elliot had followed the game, was already far behind him, and

he was considerably advanced on his return homeward, when the night began to close upon him. This would

have been a circumstance of great indifference to the experienced sportsman, who could have walked

blindfold over every inch of his native heaths, had it not happened near a spot, which, according to the

traditions of the country, was in extremely bad fame, as haunted by supernatural appearances. To tales of this

kind Hobbie had, from his childhood, lent an attentive ear; and as no part of the country afforded such a

variety of legends, so no man was more deeply read in their fearful lore than Hobbie of the Heughfoot; for

so our gallant was called, to distinguish him from a round dozen of Elliots who bore the same Christian

name. It cost him no efforts, therefore, to call to memory the terrific incidents connected with the extensive

waste upon which he was now entering. In fact, they presented themselves with a readiness which he felt to

This dreary common was called MucklestaneMoor, from a huge column of unhewn granite, which raised its

massy head on a knell near the centre of the heath, perhaps to tell of the mighty dead who slept beneath, or to

preserve the memory of some bloody skirmish. The real cause of its existence had, however, passed away;

and tradition, which is as frequently an inventor of fiction as a preserver of truth, had supplied its place with a

supplementary legend of her own, which now came full upon Hobbie's memory. The ground about the pillar

was strewed, or rather encumbered, with many large fragments of stone of the same consistence with the

column, which, from their appearance as they lay scattered on the waste, were popularly called the Grey

Geese of MucklestaneMoor. The legend accounted for this name and appearance by the catastrophe of a

noted and most formidable witch who frequented these hills in former days, causing the ewes to KEB, and

the kine to cast their calves, and performing all the feats of mischief ascribed to these evil beings. On this

moor she used to hold her revels with her sister hags; and rings were still pointed out on which no grass nor

heath ever grew, the turf being, as it were, calcined by the scorching hoofs of their diabolical partners.

Once upon a time this old hag is said to have crossed the moor, driving before her a flock of geese, which she

proposed to sell to advantage at a neighbouring fair;for it is well known that the fiend, however liberal in

imparting his powers of doing mischief, ungenerously leaves his allies under the necessity of performing the

meanest rustic labours for subsistence. The day was far advanced, and her chance of obtaining a good price

depended on her being first at the market. But the geese, which had hitherto preceded her in a pretty orderly

manner, when they came to this wide common, interspersed with marshes and pools of water, scattered in

every direction, to plunge into the element in which they delighted. Incensed at the obstinacy with which they

defied all her efforts to collect them, and not remembering the precise terms of the contract by which the

fiend was bound to obey her commands for a certain space, the sorceress exclaimed, "Deevil, that neither I

nor they ever stir from this spot more!" The words were hardly uttered, when, by a metamorphosis as sudden

as any in Ovid, the hag and her refractory flock were converted into stone, the angel whom she served, being

a strict formalist, grasping eagerly at an opportunity of completing the ruin of her body and soul by a literal

obedience to her orders. It is said, that when she perceived and felt the transformation which was about to

take place, she exclaimed to the treacherous fiend, "Ah, thou false thief! lang hast thou promised me a grey

gown, and now I am getting ane that will last for ever." The dimensions of the pillar, and of the stones, were

often appealed to, as a proof of the superior stature and size of old women and geese in the days of other

years, by those praisers of the past who held the comfortable opinion of the gradual degeneracy of mankind.

All particulars of this legend Hobbie called to mind as he passed along the moor. He also remembered, that,

since the catastrophe had taken place, the scene of it had been avoided, at least after nightfall, by all human

beings, as being the ordinary resort of kelpies, spunkies, and other demons, once the companions of the

witch's diabolical revels, and now continuing to rendezvous upon the same spot, as if still in attendance on

their transformed mistress. Hobbie's natural hardihood, however, manfully combated with these intrusive

sensations of awe. He summoned to his side the brace of large greyhounds, who were the companions of his

sports, and who were wont, in his own phrase, to fear neither dog nor devil; he looked at the priming of his

piece, and, like the clown in Hallowe'en, whistled up the warlike ditty of Jock of the Side, as a general causes

In this state of mind, he was very glad to hear a friendly voice shout in his rear, and propose to him a partner

on the road. He slackened his pace, and was quickly joined by a youth well known to him, a gentleman of

some fortune in that remote country, and who had been abroad on the same errand with himself. Young

Earnscliff, "of that ilk," had lately come of age, and succeeded to a moderate fortune, a good deal dilapidated,

from the share his family had taken in the disturbances of the period. They were much and generally

respected in the country; a reputation which this young gentleman seemed likely to sustain, as he was well

"Now, Earnscliff;" exclaimed Hobbie, "I am glad to meet your honour ony gate, and company's blithe on a

"Up the Carla Cleugh, Hobbie," answered Earnscliff, returning his greeting. "But will our dogs keep the

"Deil a fear o' mine," said Hobbie, "they hae scarce a leg to stand on.Odd! the deer's fled the country, I

think! I have been as far as Ingerfellfoot, and deil a horn has Hobbie seen, excepting three redwud raes,

that never let me within shot of them, though I gaed a mile round to get up the wind to them, an' a'. Deil o' me

wad care muckle, only I wanted some venison to our auld gudedame. The carline, she sits in the neuk

yonder, upbye, and cracks about the grand shooters and hunters lang syne Odd, I think they hae killed a'

"Well, Hobbie, I have shot a fat buck, and sent him to Earnscliff this morningyou shall have half of him

"Mony thanks to ye, Mr. Patrick, ye're kend to a' the country for a kind heart. It will do the auld wife's heart

gudemair by token, when she kens it comes frae youand maist of a' gin ye'll come up and take your

share, for I reckon ye are lonesome now in the auld tower, and a' your folk at that weary Edinburgh. I wonder

what they can find to do amang a wheen ranks o' stane houses wi' slate on the tap o' them, that might live on

"My education and my sisters' has kept my mother much in Edinburgh for several years," said Earnscliff; "but

"And ye'll rig out the auld tower a bit," said Hobbie, "and live hearty and neighbourlike wi' the auld family

friends, as the Laird o' Earnscliff should? I can tell ye, my mothermy grandmother I meanbut, since we

lost our ain mother, we ca' her sometimes the tane, and sometimes the totherbut, ony gate, she conceits

"Very true, Hobbie, and I will come to the Heughfoot to dinner tomorrow with all my heart."

"Weel, that's kindly said! We are auld neighbours, an we were nae kinand my gudedame's fain to see

"I dinna kenif it had chanced amang our folk, we wad hae keepit it in mind mony a day till we got some

mends for'tbut ye ken your ain ways best, you lairdsI have heard say that Ellieslaw's friend stickit your

"Fie, fie, Hobbie; it was a foolish brawl, occasioned by wine and politicsmany swords were drawnit is

"At ony rate, auld Ellieslaw was aiding and abetting; and I am sure if ye were sae disposed as to take amends

on him, naebody could say it was wrang, for your father's blood is beneath his nailsand besides there's

naebody else left that was concerned to take amends upon, and he's a prelatist and a jacobite into the

"O for shame, Hobbie!" replied the young Laird; "you, that profess religion, to stir your friend up to break the

law, and take vengeance at his own hand, and in such a bogilly bit too, where we know not what beings may

"Hush, hush!" said Hobbie, drawing nearer to his companion, "I was nae thinking o' the like o' themBut I

can guess a wee bit what keeps your hand up, Mr. Patrick; we a' ken it's no lack o' courage, but the twa grey

"I assure you, Hobbie," said his companion, rather angrily, "I assure you you are mistaken; and it is extremely

wrong of you, either to think of, or to utter, such an idea; I have no idea of permitting freedoms to be carried

"Why, there nowthere now!" retorted Elliot; "did I not say it was nae want o' spunk that made ye sae

mim?Weel, weel, I meant nae offence; but there's just ae thing ye may notice frae a friend. The auld Laird

of Ellieslaw has the auld riding blood far hetter at his heart than ye haetroth, he kens naething about thae

newfangled notions o' peace and quietnesshe's a' for the auldwarld doings o' lifting and laying on, and he

has a wheen stout lads at his back too, and keeps them weel up in heart, and as fu' o' mischief as young colts.

Where he gets the gear to do't nane can say; he lives high, and far abune his rents here; however, he pays his

waySae, if there's ony outbreak in the country, he's likely to break out wi' the firstand weel does he

mind the auld quarrels between ye, I'm surmizing he'll be for a touch at the auld tower at Earnscliff."

"Well, Hobbie," answered the young gentleman, "if he should be so ill advised, I shall try to make the old

tower good against him, as it has been made good by my betters against his betters many a day ago."

"Very rightvery rightthat's speaking like a man now," said the stout yeoman; "and, if sae should be that

this be sae, if ye'll just gar your servant jow out the great bell in the tower, there's me, and my twa brothers,

and little Davie of the Stenhouse, will be wi' you, wi' a' the power we can make, in the snapping of a flint."

"Many thanks, Hobbie," answered Earnscliff; "but I hope we shall have no war of so unnatural and

"Hout, sir, hout," replied Elliot; "it wad be but a wee bit neighbour war, and Heaven and earth would make

allowances for it in this uncuItivated placeit's just the nature o' the folk and the landwe canna live quiet

"Well, Hobbie," said the Laird, "for one who believes so deeply as you do in supernatural appearances, I must

own you take Heaven in your own hand rather audaciously, considering where we are walking."

"What needs I care for the MucklestaneMoor ony mair than ye do yoursell, Earnscliff?" said Hobbie,

something offended; "to be sure, they do say there's a sort o' worricows and langnebbit things about the

land, but what need I care for them? I hae a good conscience, and little to answer for, unless it be about a rant

amang the lasses, or a splore at a fair, and that's no muckle to speak of. Though I say it mysell, I am as quiet a

"And Dick Turnbull's head that you broke, and Willie of Winton whom you shot at?" said his travelling

"Hout, Earnscliff, ye keep a record of a' men's misdoings Dick's head's healed again, and we're to fight out

the quarrel at Jeddart, on the Roodday, so that's like a thing settled in a peaceable way; and then I am friends

wi' Willie again, puir chieldit was but twa or three hail draps after a'. I wad let onybody do the like o't to

me for a pint o' brandy. But Willie's lowland bred, poor fallow, and soon frighted for himsellAnd, for the

"As is not unlikely," said young Earnscliff, "for there stands your old witch, Hobbie."

"I say," continued Elliot, as if indignant at this hint"I say, if the auld carline hersell was to get up out o' the

grund just before us here, I would think nae mairBut, gude preserve us, Earnscliff; what can yon, be!"

The object which alarmed the young farmer in the middle of his valorous protestations, startled for a moment

even his less prejudiced companion. The moon, which had arisen during their conversation, was, in the

phrase of that country, wading or struggling with clouds, and shed only a doubtful and occasional light. By

one of her beams, which streamed upon the great granite column to which they now approached, they

discovered a form, apparently human, but of a size much less than ordinary, which moved slowly among the

large grey stones, not like a person intending to journey onward, but with the slow, irregular, flitting

movement of a being who hovers around some spot of melancholy recollection, uttering also, from time to

time, a sort of indistinct muttering sound. This so much resembled his idea of the motions of an apparition,

that Hobbie Elliot, making a dead pause, while his hair erected itself upon his scalp, whispered to his

companion, "It's Auld Ailie hersell! Shall I gie her a shot, in the name of God?"

"For Heaven's sake, no," said his companion, holding down the weapon which he was about to raise to the

"Ye're distracted yoursell, for thinking of going so near to her," said Elliot, holding his companion in his turn,

as he prepared to advance. "We'll aye hae time to pit ower a bit prayer (an I could but mind ane) afore she

comes this length God! she's in nae hurry," continued he, growing bolder from his companion's

confidence, and the little notice the apparition seemed to take of them. "She hirples like a hen on a het girdle.

I redd ye, Earnscliff" (this he added in a gentle whisper), "let us take a cast about, as if to draw the wind on a

buckthe bog is no abune kneedeep, and better a saft road as bad company." [The Scots use the epithet

soft, IN MALAM PARTEM, in two cases, at least. A SOFT road is a road through quagmire and bogs; and

Earnscliff, however, in spite of his companion's resistance and remonstrances, continued to advance on the

path they had originally pursued, and soon confronted the object of their investigation.

The height of the figure, which appeared even to decrease as they approached it, seemed to be under four

feet, and its form, as far as the imperfect light afforded them the means of discerning, was very nearly as

broad as long, or rather of a spherical shape, which could only be occasioned by some strange personal

deformity. The young sportsman hailed this extraordinary appearance twice, without receiving any answer, or

attending to the pinches by which his companion endeavoured to intimate that their best course was to walk

on, without giving farther disturbance to a being of such singular and preternatural exterior. To the third

repeated demand of "Who are you? What do you here at this hour of night?"a voice replied, whose shrill,

uncouth, and dissonant tones made Elliot step two paces back, and startled even his companion, "Pass on

"What do you do here so far from shelter? Are you benighted on your journey? Will you follow us home

('God forbid!' ejaculated Hobbie Elliot, involuntarily), and I will give you a lodging?"

"I would sooner lodge by mysell in the deepest of the Tarras flow," again whispered Hobbie.

"Pass on your way," rejoined the figure, the harsh tones of his voice still more exalted by passion. "I want not

your guidance I want not your lodgingit is five years since my head was under a human roof, and I trust

"He has a look of auld Humphrey Ettercap, the tinkler, that perished in this very moss about five years syne,"

answered his superstitious companion; "but Humphrey wasna that awfu' big in the bouk."

"Pass on your way," reiterated the object of their curiosity, "the breath of your human bodies poisons the air

around methe sound of pour human voices goes through my ears like sharp bodkins"

"Lord safe us!" whispered Hobbie, "that the dead should bear sie fearfu' illwill to the living!his saul maun

"Come, my friend," said Earnscliff, "you seem to suffer under some strong affliction; common humanity will

"Common humanity!" exclaimed the being, with a scornful laugh that sounded like a shriek, "where got ye

that catchwordthat noose for W.sthat common disguise for mantrapsthat bait which the

wretched idiot who swallows, will soon find covers a hook with barbs ten times sharper than those you lay

"I tell you, my friend," again replied Earnscliff, "you are incapable of judging of your own situationyou

will perish in this wilderness, and we must, in compassion, force you along with us."

"I'll hae neither hand nor foot in't," said Hobbie; "let the ghaist take his ain way, for God's sake!"

"My blood be on my own head, if I perish here," said the figure; and, observing Earnscliff meditating to lay

hold on him, he added, "And your blood be upon yours, if you touch but the skirt of my garments, to infect

The moon shone more brightly as he spoke thus, and Earnscliff observed that he held out his right hand

armed with some weapon of offence, which glittered in the cold ray like the blade of a long knife, or the

barrel of a pistol. It would have been madness to persevere in his attempt upon a being thus armed, and

holding such desperate language, especially as it was plain he would have little aid from his companion, who

had fairly left him to settle matters with the apparition as he could, and had proceeded a few paces on his way

homeward. Earnscliff, however, turned and followed Hobbie, after looking back towards the supposed

maniac, who, as if raised to frenzy by the interview, roamed wildly around the great stone, exhausting his

The two sportsmen moved on some time in silence, until they were out of hearing of these uncouth sounds,

which was not ere they had gained a considerable distance from the pillar that gave name to the moor. Each

made his private comments on the scene they had witnessed, until Hobbie Elliot suddenly exclaimed, "Weel,

I'll uphaud that yon ghaist, if it be a ghaist, has baith done and suffered muckle evil in the flesh, that gars him

"It seems to me the very madness of misanthropy," said Earnscliff; following his own current of thought.

"And ye didna think it was a spiritual creature, then?" asked Hobbie at his companion.

"Weel, I am partly of the mind mysell that it may be a live thingand yet I dinna ken, I wadna wish to see

"At any rate," said Earnscliff, "I will ride over tomorrow and see what has become of the unhappy being."

"In fair daylight?" queried the yeoman; "then, grace o' God, I'se be wi' ye. But here we are nearer to

Heughfoot than to your house by twa mile,hadna ye better e'en gae hame wi' me, and we'll send the

callant on the powny to tell them that you are wi' us, though I believe there's naebody at hame to wait for you

"Have with you then, friend Hobbie," said the young hunter; "and as I would not willingly have either the

servants be anxious, or puss forfeit her supper, in my absence, I'll be obliged to you to send the boy as you

"Aweel, that IS kind, I must say. And ye'll gae hame to Heugh foot? They'll be right blithe to see you, that

This affair settled, they walked briskly on a little farther, when, coming to the ridge of a pretty steep hill,

Hobbie Elliot exclaimed, "Now, Earnscliff, I am aye glad when I come to this very bitYe see the light

below, that's in the ha' window, where grannie, the gash auld carline, is sitting birling at her wheel and ye

see yon other light that's gaun whiddin' back and forrit through amang the windows? that's my cousin, Grace

Armstrong, she's twice as clever about the house as my sisters, and sae they say themsells, for they're

goodnatured lasses as ever trode on heather; but they confess themsells, and sae does grannie, that she has

far maist action, and is the best goer about the toun, now that grannie is off the foot hersell.My brothers,

ane o' them's away to wait upon the chamberlain, and ane's at Moss phadraig, that's our led farmhe can

"Troth am IGrace make me thankful, I'se never deny it.But will ye tell me now, Earnscliff, you that

have been at college, and the highschool of Edinburgh, and got a' sort o' lair where it was to be best

gottenwill ye tell meno that it's ony concern of mine in particular,but I heard the priest of St. John's,

and our minister, bargaining about it at the Winter fair, and troth they baith spak very weelNow, the priest

says it's unlawful to marry ane's cousin; but I cannot say I thought he brought out the Gospel authorities half

sae weel as our minister our minister is thought the best divine and the best preacher atween this and

"Certainly marriage, by all protestant Christians, is held to be as free as God made it by the Levitical law; so,

Hobbie, there can be no bar, legal or religious, betwixt you and Miss Armstrong."

"Hout awa' wi' your joking, Earnscliff," replied his companion, " ye are angry aneugh yoursell if ane

touches you a bit, man, on the sooth side of the jestNo that I was asking the question about Grace, for ye

maun ken she's no my cousingermain out and out, but the daughter of my uncle;s wife by her first marriage,

so she's nae kith nor kin to meonly a connexion like. But now we're at the SheelinghillI'll fire off my

gun, to let them ken I'm coming, that's aye my way; and if I hae a deer I gie them twa shots, ane for the deer

He fired off his piece accordingly, and the number of lights were seen to traverse the house, and even to

gleam before it. Hobbie Elliot pointed out one of these to Earnscliff, which seemed to glide from the house

towards some of the outhouses"That's Grace hersell," said Hobbie. "She'll no meet me at the door, I'se

warrant herbut she'll be awa', for a' that, to see if my hounds' supper be ready, poor beasts."

"Love me, love my dog," answered Earnscliff. "Ah, Hobbie, you are a lucky young fellow!"

This observation was uttered with something like a sigh, which apparently did not escape the ear of his

"Hout, other folk may be as lucky as I amO how I have seen Miss Isabel Vere's head turn after somebody

when they passed ane another at the Carlisle races! Wha kens but things may come round in this world?"

Earnscliff muttered something like an answer; but whether in assent of the proposition, or rebuking the

application of it, could not easily be discovered; and it seems probable that the speaker himself was willing

his meaning should rest in doubt and obscurity. They had now descended the broad loaning, which, winding

round the foot of the steep bank, or heugh, brought them in front of the thatched, but comfortable,

The doorway was thronged with joyful faces; but the appearance of a stranger blunted many a gibe which had

been prepared on Hobbie's lack of success in the deerstalking. There was a little bustle among three

handsome young women, each endeavouring to devolve upon another the task of ushering the stranger into

the apartment, while probably all were anxious to escape for the purpose of making some little personal

arrangements, before presenting themselves to a young gentleman in a dishabille only intended for their

Hobbie, in the meanwhile, bestowing some hearty and general abuse upon them all (for Grace was not of the

party), snatched the candle from the hand of one of the rustic coquettes, as she stood playing pretty with it in

her hand, and ushered his guest into the family parlour, or rather hall; for the place having been a house of

defence in former times, the sitting apartment was a vaulted and paved room, damp and dismal enough

compared with the lodgings of the yeomanry of our days, but which, when well lighted up with a large

sparkling fire of turf and bogwood, seemed to Earnscliff a most comfortable exchange for the darkness and

bleak blast of the hill. Kindly and repeatedly was he welcomed by the venerable old dame, the mistress of the

family, who, dressed in her coif and pinners, her close and decent gown of homespun wool, but with a large

gold necklace and earrings, looked, what she really was, the lady as well as the farmer's wife, while, seated

in her chair of wicker, by the corner of the great chimney, she directed the evening occupations of the young

women, and of two or three stout serving wenches, who sate plying their distaffs behind the backs of their

As soon as Earnscliff had been duly welcomed, and hasty orders issued for some addition to the evening

meal, his granddame and sisters opened their battery upon Hobbie Elliot for his lack of success against the

"Jenny needna have kept up her kitchenfire for a' that Hobbie has brought hame," said one sister.

"Troth no, lass," said another; "the gathering peat, if it was weel blawn, wad dress a' our Hobbie's venison."

[The gathering peat is the piece of turf left to treasure up the secret seeds of fire, without any generous

"Ay, or the low of the candle, if the wind wad let it hide steady," said a third; "if I were him, I would bring

hame a black craw, rather than come back three times without a buck's horn to blaw on."

Hobbie turned from the one to the other, regarding them alternately with a frown on his brow, the augury of

which was confuted by the goodhumoured laugh on the lower part of his countenance. He then strove to

"In my young days," said the old lady, "a man wad hae been ashamed to come back frae the hill without a

"I wish they had left some for us then, grannie," retorted Hobbie; "they've cleared the country o' them, thae

"We see other folk can find game, though you cannot, Hobbie," said the eldest sister, glancing a look at

"Weel, weel, woman, hasna every dog his day, begging Earnscliff's pardon for the auld sayingMayna I hae

his luck, and he mine, another time?It's a braw thing for a man to be out a' day, and frightedna, I winna

say that neither but mistrysted wi' bogles in the hamecoming, an' then to hae to flyte wi' a wheen women

that hae been doing naething a' the livelang day, but whirling a bit stick, wi' a thread trailing at it, or boring

"Frighted wi' bogles!" exclaimed the females, one and all,for great was the regard then paid, and perhaps

"I did not say frighted, nowI only said misset wi' the thing And there was but ae bogle,

And he proceeded, without very much exaggeration, to detail, in his own way, the meeting they had with the

mysterious being at MucklestaneMoor, concluding, he could not conjecture what on earth it could be, unless

it was either the Enemy himsell, or some of the auld Peghts that held the country lang syne.

"Auld Peght!" exclaimed the granddame; "na, nabless thee frae scathe, my bairn, it's been nae Peght

thatit's been the Brown Man of the Moors! O weary fa' thae evil days!what can evil beings be coming

for to distract a poor country, now it's peacefully settled, and living in love and lawO weary on him! he

ne'er brought gude to these lands or the indwellers. My father aften tauld me he was seen in the year o' the

bloody fight at MarstonMoor, and then again in Montrose's troubles, and again before the rout o' Dunbar,

and, in my ain time, he was seen about the time o' BothwellBrigg, and they said the secondsighted Laird of

Benarbuck had a communing wi' him some time afore Argyle's landing, but that I cannot speak to sae

preceeselyit was far in the west.O, bairns, he's never permitted but in an ill time, sae mind ilka ane o' ye

Earnscliff now interposed, and expressed his firm conviction that the person they had seen was some poor

maniac, and had no commission from the invisible world to announce either war or evil. But his opinion

found a very cold audience, and all joined to deprecate his purpose of returning to the spot the next day.

"O, my bonny bairn," said the old dame (for, in the kindness of her heart, she extended her parental style to

all in whom she was interested)"You should beware mair than other folkthere's been a heavy breach

made in your house wi' your father's bloodshed, and wi' lawpleas, and losses sinsyne;and you are the

flower of the flock, and the lad that will build up the auld bigging again (if it be His will) to be an honour to

the country, and a safeguard to those that dwell in ityou, before others, are called upon to put yoursell in

no rash adventuresfor yours was aye ower venturesome a race, and muckle harm they have got by it."

"But I am sure, my good friend, you would not have me be afraid of going to an open moor in broad

"I dinna ken," said the good old dame; "I wad never bid son or friend o' mine haud their hand back in a gude

cause, whether it were a friend's or their ainthat should be by nae bidding of mine, or of ony body that's

come of a gentle kindredBut it winna gang out of a grey head like mine, that to gang to seek for evil that's

Earnscliff resigned an argument which he saw no prospect of maintaining with good effect, and the entrance

of supper broke off the conversation. Miss Grace had by this time made her appearance, and Hobbie, not

without a conscious glance at Earnscliff, placed himself by her side. Mirth and lively conversation, in which

the old lady of the house took the good humoured share which so well becomes old age, restored to the

cheeks of the damsels the roses which their brother's tale of the apparition had chased away, and they danced

and sung for an hour after supper as if there were no such things as goblins in the world.

On the following morning, after breakfast, Earnscliff took leave of his hospitable friends, promising to return

in time to partake of the venison, which had arrived from his house. Hobbie, who apparently took leave of

him at the door of his habitation, slunk out, however, and joined him at the top of the hill.

"Ye'll be gaun yonder, Mr. Patrick; feind o' me will mistryst you for a' my mother says. I thought it best to

slip out quietly though, in case she should mislippen something of what we're gaun to dowe maunna vex

her at nae rateit was amaist the last word my father said to me on his deathbed."

"Troth, for that matter, she would be as sair vexed amaist for you as for me. But d'ye really think there's nae

"If I thought as you do, Hobbie," said the young gentleman, "I would not perhaps enquire farther into this

business; but as I am of opinion that preternatural visitations are either ceased altogether, or become very rare

in our days, I am unwilling to leave a matter uninvestigated which may concern the life of a poor distracted

"Aweel, aweel, if ye really think that," answered Hobbie doubtfully"And it's for certain the very fairiesI

mean the very good neighbours themsells (for they say folk suldna ca' them fairies) that used to be seen on

every green knowe at e'en, are no half sae often visible in our days. I canna depone to having ever seen ane

mysell, but, I ance heard ane whistle ahint me in the moss, as like a whaup [Curlew] as ae thing could be like

anither. And mony ane my father saw when he used to come hame frae the fairs at e'en, wi' a drap drink in his

Earnscliff was somewhat entertained with the gradual declension of superstition from one generation to

another which was inferred In this last observation; and they continued to reason on such subjects, until they

"As I shall answer," says Hobbie, "yonder's the creature creeping about yet!But it's daylight, and you have

"By all manner of means," said Earnscliff; "but, in the name of wonder, what can he be doing there?"

"Biggin a drystane dyke, I think, wi' the grey geese, as they ca' thae great loose stanesOdd, that passes a'

As they approached nearer, Earnscliff could not help agreeing with his companion. The figure they had seen

the night before seemed slowly and toilsomely labouring to pile the large stones one upon another, as if to

form a small enclosure. Materials lay around him in great plenty, but the labour of carrying on the work was

immense, from the size of most of the stones; and it seemed astonishing that he should have succeeded in

moving several which he had already arranged for the foundation of his edifice. He was struggling to move a

fragment of great size when the two young men came up, and was so intent upon executing his purpose, that

he did not perceive them till they were close upon him. In straining and heaving at the stone, in order to place

it according to his wish, he displayed a degree of strength which seemed utterly inconsistent with his size and

apparent deformity. Indeed, to judge from the difficulties he had already surmounted, he must have been of

Herculean powers; for some of the stones he had succeeded in raising apparently required two men's strength

to have moved them. Hobbie's suspicions began to revive, on seeing the preternatural strength he exerted.

"I am amaist persuaded it's the ghaist of a stanemasonsee siccan bandstatnes as he's laid iAn it be a

man, after a', I wonder what he wad take by the rood to build a march dyke. There's ane sair wanted between

Cringlehope and the Shaws. Honest man" (raising his voice), "ye make good firm wark there?"

The being whom he addressed raised his eyes with a ghastly stare, and, getting up from his stooping posture,

stood before them in all his native and hideous deformity. His head was of uncommon size, covered with a

fell of shaggy hair, partly grizzled with age; his eyebrows, shaggy and prominent, overhung a pair of small

dark, piercing eyes, set far back in their sockets, that rolled with a portentous wildness, indicative of a partial

insanity. The rest of his features were of the coarse, roughhewn stamp, with which a painter would equip a

giant in romance; to which was added the wild, irregular, and peculiar expression, so often seen in the

countenances of those whose persons are deformed. His body, thick and square, like that of a man of middle

size, was mounted upon two large feet; but nature seemed to have forgotten the legs and the thighs, or they

were so very short as to be hidden by the dress which he wore. His arms were long and brawny, furnished

with two muscular hands, and, where uncovered in the eagerness of his labour, were shagged with coarse

black hair. It seemed as if nature had originally intended the separate parts of his body to be the members of a

giant, but had afterwards capriciously assigned them to the person of a dwarf, so ill did the length of his arms

and the iron strength of his frame correspond with the shortness of his stature. His clothing was a sort of

coarse brown tunic, like a monk's frock, girt round him with a belt of sealskin. On his head he had a cap

made of badger's skin, or some other rough fur, which added considerably to the grotesque effect of his whole

appearance, and overshadowed features, whose habitual expression seemed that of sullen malignant

This remarkable Dwarf gazed on the two youths in silence, with a dogged and irritated look, until Earnscliff,

willing to soothe him into better temper, observed, "You are hard tasked, my friend; allow us to assist you."

Elliot and he accordingly placed the stone, by their joint efforts, upon the rising wall. The Dwarf watched

them with the eye of a taskmaster, and testified, by peevish gestures, his impatience at the time which they

took in adjusting the stone. He pointed to anotherthey raised it alsoto a third, to a fourththey

continued to humour him, though with some trouble, for he assigned them, as if intentionally, the heaviest

"And now, friend," said Elliot, as the unreasonable Dwarf indicated another stone larger than any they had

moved, "Earnscliff may do as he likes; but be ye man or be ye waur, deil be in my fingers if I break my back

wi' heaving thae stanes ony langer like a barrowman, without getting sae muckle as thanks for my pains."

"Thanks!" exclaimed the Dwarf, with a motion expressive of the utmost contempt"Theretake them, and

fatten upon them! Take them, and may they thrive with you as they have done with meas they have done

with every mortal worm that ever heard the word spoken by his fellow reptile! Henceeither labour or

"This is a fine reward we have, Earnscliff, for building a tabernacle for the devil, and prejudicing our ain

"Our presence," answered Earnscliff, "seems only to irritate his frenzy; we had better leave him, and send

They did so. The servant dispatched for this purpose found the Dwarf still labouring at his wall, but could not

extract a word from him. The lad, infected with the superstitions of the country, did not long persist in an

attempt to intrude questions or advice on so singular a figure, but having placed the articles which he had

brought for his use on a stone at some distance, he left them at the misanthrope's disposal.

The Dwarf proceeded in his labours, day after day, with an assiduity so incredible as to appear almost

supernatural. In one day he often seemed to have done the work of two men, and his building soon assumed

the appearance of the walls of a hut, which, though very small, and constructed only of stones and turf,

without any mortar, exhibited, from the unusual size of the stones employed, an appearance of solidity very

uncommon for a cottage of such narrow dimensions and rude construction. Earnscliff; attentive to his

motions, no sooner perceived to what they tended, than he sent down a number of spars of wood suitable for

forming the roof, which he caused to be left in the neighbourhood of the spot, resolving next day to send

workmen to put them up. But his purpose was anticipated, for in the evening, during the night, and early in

the morning, the Dwarf had laboured so hard, and with such ingenuity, that he had nearly completed the

adjustment of the rafters. His next labour was to cut rushes and thatch his dwelling, a task which he

As he seemed averse to receive any aid beyond the occasional assistance of a passenger, materials suitable to

his purpose, and tools, were supplied to him, in the use of which he proved to be skilful. He constructed the

door and window of his cot, he adjusted a rude bedstead, and a few shelves, and appeared to become

His next task was to form a strong enclosure, and to cultivate the land within it to the best of his power; until,

by transporting mould, and working up what was upon the spot, he formed a patch of gardenground. It must

be naturally supposed, that, as above hinted, this solitary being received assistance occasionally from such

travellers as crossed the moor by chance, as well as from several who went from curiosity to visit his works.

It was, indeed, impossible to see a human creature, so unfitted, at first sight, for hard labour, toiling with such

unremitting assiduity, without stopping a few minutes to aid him in his task; and, as no one of his occasional

assistants was acquainted with the degree of help which the Dwarf had received from others, the celerity of

his progress lost none of its marvels in their eyes. The strong and compact appearance of the cottage, formed

in so very short a space, and by such a being, and the superior skill which he displayed in mechanics, and in

other arts, gave suspicion to the surrounding neighbours. They insisted, that, if he was not a phantom,an

opinion which was now abandoned, since he plainly appeared a being of blood and bone with

themselves,yet he must be in close league with the invisible world, and have chosen that sequestered spot

to carry on his communication with them undisturbed. They insisted, though in a different sense from the

philosopher's application of the phrase, that he was never less alone than when alone; and that from the

heights which commanded the moor at a distance, passengers often discovered a person at work along with

this dweller of the desert, who regularly disappeared as soon as they approached closer to the cottage. Such a

figure was also occasionally seen sitting beside him at the door, walking with him in the moor, or assisting

him in fetching water from his fountain. Earnscliff explained this phenomenon by supposing it to be the

"Deil a shadow has he," replied Hobbie Elliot, who was a strenuous defender of the general opinion; "he's

ower far in wi' the Auld Ane to have a shadow. Besides," he argued more logically, "wha ever heard of a

shadow that cam between a body and the sun? and this thing, be it what it will, is thinner and taller than the

body himsell, and has been seen to come between him and the sun mair than anes or twice either."

These suspicions, which, in any other part of the country, might have been attended with investigations a

little inconvenient to the supposed wizard, were here only productive of respect and awe. The recluse being

seemed somewhat gratified by the marks of timid veneration with which an occasional passenger approached

his dwelling, the look of startled surprise with which he surveyed his person and his premises, and the hurried

step with which he pressed his retreat as he passed the awful spot. The boldest only stopped to gratify their

curiosity by a hasty glance at the walls of his cottage and garden, and to apologize for it by a courteous

salutation, which the inmate sometimes deigned to return by a word or a nod. Earnscliff often passed that

way, and seldom without enquiring after the solitary inmate, who seemed now to have arranged his

It was impossible to engage him in any conversation on his own personal affairs; nor was he communicative

or accessible in talking on any other subject whatever, although he seemed to have considerably relented in

the extreme ferocity of his misanthropy, or rather to be less frequently visited with the fits of derangement of

which this was a symptom. No argument could prevail upon him to accept anything beyond the simplest

necessaries, although much more was offered by Earnscliff out of charity, and by his more superstitious

neighbours from other motives. The benefits of these last he repaid by advice, when consulted (as at length he

slowly was) on their diseases, or those of their cattle. He often furnished them with medicines also, and

seemed possessed, not only of such as were the produce of the country, but of foreign drugs. He gave these

persons to understand, that his name was Elshender the Recluse; but his popular epithet soon came to be

Canny Elshie, or the Wise Wight of MucklestaneMoor. Some extended their queries beyond their bodily

complaints, and requested advice upon other matters, which he delivered with an oracular shrewdness that

greatly confirmed the opinion of his possessing preternatural skill. The querists usually left some offering

upon a stone, at a distance from his dwelling; if it was money, or any article which did not suit him to accept,

he either threw it away, or suffered it to remain where it was without making use of it. On all occasions his

manners were rude and unsocial; and his words, in number, just sufficient to express his meaning as briefly as

possible, and he shunned all communication that went a syllable beyond the matter in hand. When winter had

passed away, and his garden began to afford him herbs and vegetables, he confined himself almost entirely to

those articles of food. He accepted, notwithstanding, a pair of shegoats from Earnscliff, which fed on the

When Earnscliff found his gift had been received, he soon afterwards paid the hermit a visit. The old man

was seated an a broad flat stone near his garden door, which was the seat of science he usually occupied when

disposed to receive his patients or clients. The inside of his hut, and that of his garden, he kept as sacred from

human intrusion as the natives of Otaheite do their Morai;apparently he would have deemed it polluted by

the step of any human being. When he shut himself up in his habitation, no entreaty could prevail upon him

Earnscliff had been fishing in a small river at some distance. He had his rod in his hand, and his basket, filled

with trout, at his shoulder. He sate down upon a stone nearly opposite to the Dwarf who, familiarized with his

presence, took no farther notice of him than by elevating his huge misshapen head for the purpose of staring

at him, and then again sinking it upon his bosom, as if in profound meditation. Earnscliff looked around him,

and observed that the hermit had increased his accommodations by the construction of a shed for the

You labour hard, Elshie," he said, willing to lead this singular being into conversation.

"Labour," reechoed the Dwarf, "is the mildest evil of a lot so miserable as that of mankind; better to labour

"And yet," interrupted the Dwarf" they are better than your ordinary business; better to exercise idle and

wanton cruelty on mute fishes than on your fellowcreatures. Yet why should I say so? Why should not the

whole human herd butt, gore, and gorge upon each other, till all are extirpated but one huge and over fed

Behemoth, and he, when he had throttled and gnawed the bones of all his fellowshe, when his prey failed

him, to be roaring whole days for lack of food, and, finally, to die, inch by inch, of famineit were a

"Your deeds are better, Elshie, than your words," answered Earnscliff; "you labour to preserve the race whom

"I do; but why?Hearken. You are one on whom I look with the least loathing, and I care not, if, contrary to

my wont, I waste a few words in compassion to your infatuated blindness. If I cannot send disease into

families, and murrain among the herds, can I attain the same end so well as by prolonging the lives of those

who can serve the purpose of destruction as effectually? If Alice of Bower had died in winter, would

young Ruthwin have been slain for her love the last spring?Who thought of penning their cattle beneath

the tower when the Red Reiver of Westburnflat was deemed to be on his deathbed?My draughts, my

skill, recovered him. And, now, who dare leave his herd upon the lea without a watch, or go to bed without

"I own," answered Earnscliff; "you did little good to society by the last of these cures. But, to balance the

evil, there is my friend Hobbie, honest Hobbie of the Heughfoot, your skill relieved him last winter in a

"Thus think the children of clay in their ignorance," said: the Dwarf, smiling maliciously, "and thus they

speak in their folly. Have you marked the young cub of a wild cat that has been domesticated, how sportive,

how playful, how gentle,but trust him with your game, your lambs, your poultry, his inbred ferocity breaks

"Such is the animal's instinct," answered Earnscliff; "but what has that to do with Hobbie?"

"It is his emblemit is his picture," retorted the Recluse. "He is at present tame, quiet, and domesticated, for

lack of opportunity to exercise his inborn propensities; but let the trumpet of war soundlet the young

bloodhound snuff blood, he will be as ferocious as the wildest of his Border ancestors that ever fired a

helpless peasant's abode. Can you deny, that even at present he often urges you to take bloody revenge for an

injury received when you were a boy?"Earnscliff started; the Recluse appeared not to observe his surprise,

and proceeded"The trumpet WILL blow, the young bloodhound WILL lap blood, and I will laugh and

say, For this I have preserved thee!" He paused, and continued,"Such are my cures;their object, their

purpose, perpetuating the mass of misery, and playing even in this desert my part in the general tragedy.

"I am much obliged to you, Elshie, and certainly shall not fail to consult you, with so comfortable a hope

"Do not flatter yourself too far," replied the Hermit, "with the hope that I will positively yield to the frailty of

pity. Why should I snatch a dupe, so well fitted to endure the miseries of life as you are, from the

wretchedness which his own visions, and the villainy of the world, are preparing for him? Why should I play

the compassionate Indian, and, knocking out the brains of the captive with my tomahawk, at once spoil the

three days' amusement of my kindred tribe, at the very moment when the brands were lighted, the pincers

heated, the cauldrons boiling, the knives sharpened, to tear, scorch, seethe, and scarify the intended victim?"

"A dreadful picture you present to me of life, Elshie; but I am not daunted by it," returned Earnscliff. "We are

sent here, in one sense, to bear and to suffer; but, in another, to do and to enjoy. The active day has its

evening of repose; even patient sufferance has its alleviations, where there is a consolatory sense of duty

"I spurn at the slavish and bestial doctrine," said the Dwarf, his eyes kindling with insane fury,"I spurn at

it, as worthy only of the beasts that perish; but I will waste no more words with you."

He rose hastily; but, ere he withdrew into the hut, he added, with great vehemence, "Yet, lest you still think

my apparent benefits to mankind flow from the stupid and servile source, called love of our fellowcreatures,

know, that were there a man who had annihilated my soul's dearest hopewho had torn my heart to

mammocks, and seared mp brain till it glowed like a volcano, and were that man's fortune and life in my

power as completely as this frail potsherd" (he snatched up an earthen cup which stood beside him), "I would

not dash him into atoms thus"(he flung the vessel with fury against the wall),"No!" (he spoke more

composedly, but with the utmost bitterness), "I would pamper him with wealth and power to inflame his evil

passions, and to fulfil his evil designs; he should lack no means of vice and villainy; he should be the centre

of a whirlpool that itself should know neither rest nor peace, but boil with unceasing fury, while it wrecked

every goodly ship that approached its limits! he should be an earthquake capable of shaking the very land in

which he dwelt, and rendering all its inhabitants friendless, outcast, and miserableas I am!"

The wretched being rushed into his hut as he uttered these last words, shutting the door with furious violence,

and rapidly drawing two bolts, one after another, as if to exclude the intrusion of any one of that hated race,

who had thus lashed his soul to frenzy. Earnscliff left the moor with mingled sensations of pity and horror,

pondering what strange and melancholy cause could have reduced to so miserable a state of mind, a man

whose language argued him to be of rank and education much superior to the vulgar. He was also surprised to

see how much particular information a person who had lived in that country so short a time, and in so recluse

a manner, had been able to collect respecting the dispositions and private affairs of the inhabitants.

"It is no wonder," he said to himself, "that with such extent of information, such a mode of life, so uncouth a

figure, and sentiments so virulently misanthropic, this unfortunate should be regarded by the vulgar as in

As the season advanced, the weather became more genial, and the Recluse was more frequently found

occupying the broad flat stone in the front of his mansion. As he sate there one day, about the hour of noon, a

party of gentlemen and ladies, well mounted, and numerously attended, swept across the heath at some

distance from his dwelling. Dogs, hawks, and ledhorses swelled the retinue, and the air resounded at

intervals with the cheer of the hunters, and the sound of horns blown by the attendants. The Recluse was

about to retire into his mansion at the sight of a train so joyous, when three young ladies, with their

attendants, who had made a circuit, and detached themselves from their party, in order to gratify their

curiosity by a sight of the Wise Wight of MucklestaneMoor, came suddenly up, ere he could effect his

purpose. The first shrieked, and put her hands before her eyes, at sight of an object so unusually deformed.

The second, with a hysterical giggle, which she intended should disguise her terrors, asked the Recluse,

whether he could tell their fortune. The third, who was best mounted, best dressed, and incomparably the

bestlooking of the three, advanced, as if to cover the incivility of her companions.

"We have lost the right path that leads through these morasses, and our party have gone forward without us,"

said the young lady. "Seeing you, father, at the door of your house, we have turned this way to"

"Hush!" interrupted the Dwarf; "so young, and already so artful? You cameyou know you came, to exult in

the consciousness of your own youth, wealth, and beauty, by contrasting them with age, poverty, and

deformity. It is a fit employment for the daughter of your father; but O how unlike the child of your mother!"

"Yes; this is the first time you have crossed my waking eyes, but I have seen you in my dreams."

"Your waking thoughts, sir," said the second of Miss Vere's companions, with a sort of mock gravity, "are

fixed, doubtless, upon wisdom; folly can only intrude on your sleeping moments."

"Over thine," retorted the Dwarf, more splenetically than became a philosopher or hermit, "folly exercises an

"As surely," continued the Recluse," as thou art a woman.A woman!I should have said a ladya fine

lady. You asked me to tell your fortuneit is a simple one; an endless chase through life after follies not

worth catching, and, when caught, successively thrown awaya chase, pursued from the days of tottering

infancy to those of old age upon his crutches. Toys and merrymakings in childhoodlove and its

absurdities in youthspadille and basto in age, shall succeed each other as objects of pursuitflowers and

butterflies in spring butterflies and thistledown in summerwithered leaves in autumn and winterall

"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

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

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

"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,

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

"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

evilsunsuccessful 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 notthey do notAlas! they cannot. And yet wait here an instantstir

not till my return." He went to his little garden, and returned with a halfblown 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 isif 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 messageno gobetween! 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 bridlerein, 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 farfamed

wizard of the Moor. "Isabella has all the luck at home and abroad! Her hawk strikes down the blackcock;

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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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,

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

"That," replied Miss Lucy, "depends entirely on the manner in which the naysays are said. Mine should

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

"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 soninlaw, 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 relativesIsabel, I would die rather than have

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

"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

"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

"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;

"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."

"And whom else should I mean" said Lucy. "Jaffiers and Pierres are very scarce in this country, I take it,

"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

"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 welljudging reader would set

you down for the lady and the love of Earnscliff; from the very obstacle which you suppose so

"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

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, sharpfeatured, sunburnt, and freckled, had

a sinister expression of violence, impudence, and cunning, each of which seemed alternately to predominate

over the others. Sandycoloured 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

"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 watersaps and panada," returned the unabashed convalescent. "Ye ken, Elshie, for

"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

"Why, what would you have me to do? It's born with melies 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,

"Right; and thou art as thoroughbred a wolf," said the Dwarf, "as ever leapt a lambfold at night. On what

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

"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 fellowcreatures, and thou art a

"NoI say not guilty to thatlever 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

"No; not young Earnscliffnot young Earnscliff YET; but his time may come, if he will not take warning,

and get him back to the burrowtown 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 Heughfoot," 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 penfeather o' his wing before tomorrow morning.

Farewell, Elshie; there's some canny boys waiting for me down amang the shaws, owerby; I will see you as I

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

"That villain," exclaimed the Dwarf,"that coolblooded, 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 screechowl voice, my hideous form, and my misshapen features, to

do with the fairer workmanship of nature? Do not men receive even my benefits with shrinking horror and

illsuppressed 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 reapedby all the wrongs

which I have sustainedby 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 misshapen 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 Elliotthis 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 resolvedfirmly

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 reechoing among the range of heathy fells like the sound of a distant engagement.

The night continued sullen and stormy; but morning rose as if refreshed by the rains. Even the

MucklestaneMoor, 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 goodhumour 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 shegoats 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

benefactorto you, the finest shape that ever statuary moulded would be an object of indifference or of

alarm, should it present itself instead of the misshapen 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 lunaticsfor their disgraceful restraintsfor their cruel privations, than for

communication with the rest of humanity. Hubert aloneand 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

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 bestbroke 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, manlet a be the hound!Na, na, Killbuck maunna be guided that gate,

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

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

Hobbie retreated a step or two in great surprise, discomposure, and disdain, at having been placed in such

"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 firstcousin to a deer, sae he

acted but according to his nature after a'. Had it been a petlamb, there wad hae been mair to be said. Ye suld

keep sheep, Elshie, and no goats, where there's sae mony deerhounds aboutbut I'll send ye baith."

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

"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

beBut I am a bridegroom, ye see, and that puts a' things out o' my head, I think. There's the

marriagedinner, 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 goodnatured 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

"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 brouzethe like's no been seen sin'

the days of auld Martin of the Preakin towerI 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

"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

"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

"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,

So saying, he rode off; and Elshie, after looking at him with a scornful and indignant laugh, took spade and

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,

"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 Heughfoot this morning; there's a toom byre and a wide, and a wail and a cry

"Ay; Charlie CheattheWoodie, 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

"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 hershe's a bonny lassie. Hobbie will hae a merry morning

"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 duneane is as gude as anither. And now, you that like to hear o'

"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."

"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 uninjuredwha kens what may happen were she to be left lang at

TinningBeck? Charlie CheattheWoodie 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 twentyfour 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

"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 ashkeys fall in a frosty morning in October. I will not disobey you."

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 fosterchildren 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 fosterson,

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

gunshot frae the doorstane for ordinar?Hout, it will just be to get craneberries, or whortleberries, 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'sbuckie out o' my headthe 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

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 forwardgang na forwardit'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 stackyard lying in

the red ashes, and the gear a' driven away. But gang na forward ; it wad break your young heart, hinny, to see

"And who has dared to do this? let go my bridle, Annaplewhere is my grandmothermy sisters?Where

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 heartbreaking sight.

The habitation which he had left in its seclusion, beside the mountainstream, 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 turfstack, the barnyard, 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 ruinedruined to the

ground!But curse on the warld's gearHad it not been the week before the bridalBut 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 gudesire did, under the Bellenden banner, wi' auld Buccleuch. At ony rate, I will

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

"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

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

"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 slaythey 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

"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

"I am no saying onything against revenging Hobbie's wrang, puir chield; but we maun take the law wi' us in

"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

"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 gatheringword, 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 Heughfoot

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, Simonthank ye, neighboursI

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 fallowpuir Hobbie!"

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

"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 youI count youmy 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

"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 ownbut I had strength given me to say, The

Lord's will be done!My son, our peaceful house was last night broken into by mosstroopers, armed and

masked; they have taken and destroyed all, and carried off our dear Grace. Pray for strength to say, His will

"Mother! mother! urge me notI cannotnot now I am a sinful man, and of a hardened race. Masked

armedGrace carried off! Gie me my sword, and my father's knapsackI will have vengeance, if I should

"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 sona leal

"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, mothernot 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

"May He go forthmay He go forth with you, my dear bairn; and O, may He give you cause to say on your

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

"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

"Ay, ay!" exclaimed Simon of Hackburn, "that's the gate to take it, Hobbie. Let women sit and greet at hame,

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

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

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

"D'ye think we dinna ken the road to England as weel as our fathers before us?All evil comes out o'

thereawayit'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."

"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

"Now, Killbuck," said Hobbie, "try thy skill this day" and then, as if a light had suddenly broke on

him,"that illfaur'd goblin spak something o' this! He may ken mair o't, either by villains on earth, or

devils belowI'll hae it frae him, if I should cut it out o' his misshapen bouk wi' my whinger." He then

hastily gave directions to his comrades: "Four o' ye, wi' Simon, haud right forward to Graeme'sgap. 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 Trystingpool. 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

"And if I were you," said Dick of the Dingle, "I would speak to Canny Elshie. He can tell you whatever

"He SHALL tell me," said Hobbie, who was busy putting his arms in order, "what he kens o' this night's job,

"Ay, but speak him fair, my bonny manspeak 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 owermaister a'

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

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 MucklestaneMoor. 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

"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

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,

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

"The better!" answered the shrill and discordant voice of the Dwarf through a very small window, resembling

an arrow slit, which he had constructed near the door of his dwelling, and through which he could see any

"The better!" said Hobbie impatiently; "what is the better, Elshie? Do you not hear me tell you I am the most

"And do you not hear me tell you it is so much the better! and did I not tell you this morning, when you

"That ye did e'en," replied Hobbie, "and that gars me come to you for advice now; they that foresaw the

"I know no cure for earthly trouble," returned the Dwarf "or, if I did, why should I help others, when none

hath aided me? Have I not lost wealth, that would have bought all thy barren hills a hundred times over? rank,

to which thine is as that of a peasant? society, where there was an interchange of all that was amiableof all

that was intellectual? Have I not lost all this? Am I not residing here, the veriest outcast on the face of Nature,

in the most hideous and most solitary of her retreats, myself more hideous than all that is around me? And

why should other worms complain to me when they are trodden on, since I am myself lying crushed and

"Ye may have lost all this," answered Hobbie, in the bitterness of emotion; "land and friends, goods and gear;

ye may hae lost them a',but ye ne'er can hae sae sair a heart as mine, for ye ne'er lost nae Grace Armstrong.

This he said in the tone of deepest emotionand there followed a long pause, for the mention of his bride's

name had overcome the more angry and irritable feelings of poor Hobbie. Ere he had again addressed the

Solitary, the bony hand and long fingers of the latter, holding a large leathern bag, was thrust forth at the

small window, and as it unclutched the burden, and let it drop with a clang upon the ground, his harsh voice

"Therethere lies a salve for every human ill; so, at least, each human wretch readily thinks.Begone;

return twice as wealthy as thou wert before yesterday, and torment me no more with questions, complaints, or

"It is a' gowd, by Heaven!" said Elliot, having glanced at the contents; and then again addressing the Hermit,

"Muckle obliged for your goodwill; and I wad blithely gie you a bond for some o' the siller, or a wadset ower

the lands o' Wideopen. But I dinna ken, Elshie; to be free wi' you, I dinna like to use siller unless I kend it

was decently come by; and maybe it might turn into sclatestanes, and cheat some poor man."

"Ignorant idiot!" retorted the Dwarf; "the trash is as genuine poison as ever was dug out of the bowels of the

"But I tell you," said Elliot, "it wasna about the gear that I was consulting you,it was a braw barnyard,

doubtless, and thirty head of finer cattle there werena on this side of the Catrail; but let the gear gang,if ye

could but gie me speerings o' puir Grace, I would be content to be your slave for life, in onything that didna

"Well, then," answered the Dwarf, as if worn out by his importunity, "since thou hast not enough of woes of

thine own, but must needs seek to burden thyself with those of a partner, seek her whom thou hast lost in the

"It is the last," said the Dwarf, which I design to utter;" and he drew the shutters of his window, leaving

The west! the west!thought Elliot; the country is pretty quiet down that way, unless it were Jock o' the

Todholes; and he's ower auld now for the like o' thae jobs.West!By My life, it must be Westburnflat.

"Elshie, just tell me one word. Am I right? Is it Westburnflat? If I am wrang, say sae. I wadna like to wyte an

innocent neighbour wi' violenceNo answer?It must be the Red ReiverI didna think he wad hae

ventured on me, neither, and sae mony kin as there's o' usI am thinking he'll hae some better backing than

his Cumberland friends.Fareweel to you, Elshie, and mony thanksI downa be fashed wi' the siller e'en

now, for I maun awa' to meet my friends at the Trystingplace Sae, if ye carena to open the window, ye

"He's deaf, or he's daft, or he's baith; but I hae nae time to stay to claver wi' him."

And off rode Hobbie Elliot towards the place of rendezvous which he had named to his friends.

Four or five riders were already gathered at the Trysting pool. They stood in close consultation together,

while their horses were permitted to graze among the poplars which overhung the broad still pool. A more

numerous party were seen coming from the southward. It proved to be Earnscliff and his party, who had

followed the track of the cattle as far as the English border, but had halted on the information that a

considerable force was drawn together under some of the Jacobite gentlemen in that district, and there were

tidings of insurrection in different parts of Scotland. This took away from the act which had been perpetrated

the appearance of private animosity, or love of plunder; and Earnscliff was now disposed to regard it as a

symptom of civil war. The young gentleman greeted Hobbie with the most sincere sympathy, and informed

"Then, may I never stir frae the bit," said Elliot, "if auld Ellieslaw is not at the bottom o' the haill villainy! Ye

see he's leagued wi' the Cumberland Catholics; and that agrees weel wi' what Elshie hinted about

Westburnflat, for Ellieslaw aye protected him, and he will want to harry and disarm the country about his ain

Some now remembered that the party of ruffians had been heard to say they were acting for James VIII., and

were charged to disarm all rebels. Others had heard Westburnflat boast, in drinking parties, that Ellieslaw

would soon be in arms for the Jacobite cause, and that he himself was to hold a command under him, and that

they would be bad neighbours for young Earnscliff; and all that stood out for the established government. The

result was a strong belief that Westburnflat had headed the party under Ellieslaw's orders; and they resolved

to proceed instantly to the house of the former, and, if possible, to secure his person. They were by this time

joined by so many of their dispersed friends, that their number amounted to upwards of twenty horsemen,

A brook, which issued from a narrow glen among the hills, entered, at Westburnflat, upon the open marshy

level, which, expanding about half a mile in every direction, gives name to the spot. In this place the

character of the stream becomes changed, and, from being a lively briskrunning mountaintorrent, it

stagnates, like a blue swollen snake, in dull deep windings, through the swampy level. On the side of the

stream, and nearly about the centre of the plain, arose the tower of Westburnflat, one of the few remaining

strongholds formerly so numerous upon the Borders. The ground upon which it stood was gently elevated

above the marsh for the space of about a hundred yards, affording an esplanade of dry turf, which extended

itself in the immediate neighbourhood of the tower; but, beyond which, the surface presented to strangers was

that of an impassable and dangerous bog. The owner of the tower and his inmates alone knew the winding

and intricate paths, which, leading over ground that was comparatively sound, admitted visitors to his

residence. But among the party which were assembled under Earnscliff's directions, there was more than one

person qualified to act as a guide. For although the owner's character and habits of life were generally known,

yet the laxity of feeling with respect to property prevented his being looked on with the abhorrence with

which he must have been regarded in a more civilized country. He was considered, among his more

peaceable neighbours, pretty much as a gambler, cockfighter, or horsejockey would be regarded at the

present day; a person, of course, whose habits were to be condemned, and his society, in general, avoided, yet

who could not be considered as marked with the indelible infamy attached to his profession, where laws have

been habitually observed. And their indignation was awakened against him upon this occasion, not so much

on account of the general nature of the transaction, which was just such as was to be expected from this

marauder, as that the violence had been perpetrated upon a neighbour against whom he had no cause of

quarrel,against a friend of their own, above all, against one of the name of Elliot, to which clan most of

them belonged. It was not, therefore, wonderful, that there should be several in the band pretty well

acquainted with the locality of his habitation, and capable of giving such directions and guidance as soon

placed the whole party on the open space of firm ground in front of the Tower of Westburnflat.

The tower, before which the party now stood, was a small square building, of the most gloomy aspect. The

walls were of great thickness, and the windows, or slits which served the purpose of windows, seemed rather

calculated to afford the defenders the means of employing missile weapons, than for admitting air or light to

the apartments within. A small battlement projected over the walls on every side, and afforded farther

advantage of defence by its niched parapet, within which arose a steep roof, flagged with grey stones. A

single turret at one angle, defended by a door studded with huge iron nails, rose above the battlement, and

gave access to the roof from within, by the spiral staircase which it enclosed. It seemed to the party that their

motions were watched by some one concealed within this turret; and they were confirmed in their belief

when, through a narrow loophole, a female hand was seen to wave a handkerchief, as if by way of signal to

"It was Grace's hand and arm," he said; "I can swear to it amang a thousand. There is not the like of it on this

side of the LowdensWe'll have her out, lads, if we should carry off the Tower of Westburnflat stane by

Earnscliff, though he doubted the possibility of recognising a fair maiden's hand at such a distance from the

eye of the lover, would say nothing to damp his friend's animated hopes, and it was resolved to summon the

The shouts of the party, and the winding of one or two horns, at length brought to a loophole, which flanked

"That's the Reiver's mother," said one of the Elliots; "she's ten times waur than himsell, and is wyted for

"Wha are ye? what d'ye want here?" were the queries of the respectable progenitor.

"Then open the gate and admit us," said Earnscliff; "I am a justice of peace, and in search of the evidence of a

"Deil be in their fingers that draws a bolt for ye," retorted the portress; "for mine shall never do it. Thinkna ye

shame o' yoursells, to come here siccan a band o' ye, wi' your swords, and spears, and steelcaps, to frighten

"Our information," said Earnscliff; "is positive; we are seeking goods which have been forcibly carried off, to

"And a young woman, that's been cruelly made prisoner, that's worth mair than a' the gear, twice told," said

"And I warn you." continued Earnscliff, "that your only way to prove your son's innocence is to give us quiet

"And what will ye do, if I carena to thraw the keys, or draw the bolts, or open the grate to sic a clamjamfrie?"

"Force our way with the king's keys, and break the neck of every living soul we find in the house, if ye dinna

"Threatened folks live lang," said the hag, in the same tone of irony; "there's the iron gratetry your skeel

So saying, she laughed, and withdrew from the aperture through which she had held the parley.

The besiegers now opened a serious consultation. The immense thickness of the walls, and the small size of

the windows, might, for a time, have even resisted cannonshot. The entrance was secured, first, by a strong

grated door, composed entirely of hammered iron, of such ponderous strength as seemed calculated to resist

any force that could be brought against it. "Pinches or forehammers will never pick upon't," said Hugh, the

Within the doorway, and at the distance of nine feet, which was the solid thickness of the wall, there was a

second door of oak, crossed, both breadth and lengthways, with clenched bars of iron, and studded full of

broadheaded nails. Besides all these defences, they were by no means confident in the truth of the old

dame's assertion, that she alone composed the garrison. The more knowing of the party had observed

hoofmarks in the track by which they approached the tower, which seemed to indicate that several persons

To all these difficulties was added their want of means for attacking the place. There was no hope of

procuring ladders long enough to reach the battlements, and the windows, besides being very narrow, were

secured with iron bars. Scaling was therefore out of the question; mining was still more so, for want of tools

and gunpowder; neither were the besiegers provided with food, means of shelter, or other conveniences,

which might have enabled them to convert the siege into a blockade; and there would, at any rate, have been

a risk of relief from some of the marauder's comrades. Hobbie grinded and gnashed his teeth, as, walking

round the fastness, he could devise no means of making a forcible entry. At length he suddenly exclaimed,

"And what for no do as our fathers did lang syne?Put hand to the wark, lads. Let us cut up bushes and

briers, pile them before the door and set fire to them, and smoke that auld devil's dam as if she were to be

All immediately closed with this proposal, and some went to work with swords and knives to cut down the

alder and hawthorn bushes which grew by the side of the sluggish stream, many of which were sufficiently

decayed and dried for their purpose, while others began to collect them in a large stack, properly disposed for

burning, as close to the irongrate as they could be piled. Fire was speedily obtained from one of their guns,

and Hobbie was already advancing to the pile with a kindled brand, when the surly face of the robber, and the

muzzle of a musquetoon, were partially shown at a shothole which flanked the entrance. "Mony thanks to

ye," he said, scoffingly, "for collecting sae muckle winter eilding for us; but if ye step a foot nearer it wi' that

The marauder snapped his piece at him, which, fortunately for our honest friend, did not go off; while

Earnscliff, firing at the same moment at the narrow aperture and slight mark afforded by the robber's face,

grazed the side of his head with a bullet. He had apparently calculated upon his post affording him more

security, for he no sooner felt the wound, though a very slight one, than he requested a parley, and demanded

to know what they meant by attacking in this fashion a peaceable and honest man, and shedding his blood in

"That," retorted Earnscliff, "you, who are detaining her by force, have no right to enquire."

"Aweel, I think I can gie a guess," said the robber. "Weel, sirs, I am laith to enter into deadly feud with you

by spilling ony of your bluid, though Earnscliff hasna stopped to shed mine and he can hit a mark to a

groat's breadthso, to prevent mair skaith, I am willing to deliver up the prisoner, since nae less will please

"And Hobbie's gear?" cried Simon of Hackburn. "D'ye think you're to be free to plunder the faulds and byres

"As I live by bread," replied Willie of Westburnflat "As I live by bread, I have not a single cloot o' them!

They're a' ower the march lang syne; there's no a horn o' them about the tower. But I'll see what o' them can

be gotten back, and I'll take this day twa days to meet Hobbie at the Castleton wi' twa friends on ilka side, and

"Ay, ay," said Elliot, "that will do weel eneugh."And then aside to his kinsman, "Murrain on the gear!

Lordsake, man! say nought about them. Let us but get puir Grace out o' that auld hellicat's clutches."

"Will ye gie me your word, Earnscliff," said the marauder, who still lingered at the shothole, "your faith and

troth, with hand and glove, that I am free to come and free to gae, with five minutes to open the grate, and

five minutes to steek it and to draw the bolts? less winna do, for they want creishing sairly. Will ye do this?"

"You shall have full time," said Earnscliff; "I plight my faith and troth, my hand and my glove."

"Wait there a moment, then," said Westburnflat; "or hear ye, I wad rather ye wad fa' back a pistolshot from

the door. It's no that I mistrust your word, Earnscliff; but it's best to be sure."

O, friend, thought Hobbie to himself, as he drew back, an I had you but on Turner'sholm, [There is a level

meadow, on the very margin of the two kingdoms, called Turner'sholm, just where the brook called Crissop

joins the Liddel. It is said to have derived its name as being a place frequently assigned for tourneys, during

the ancient Border times.] and naebody by but twa honest lads to see fair play, I wad make ye wish ye had

"He has a white feather in his wing this same Westburnflat, after a'," said Simon of Hackburn, somewhat

In the meanwhile, the inner door of the tower was opened, and the mother of the freebooter appeared in the

space betwixt that and the outer grate. Willie himself was next seen, leading forth a female, and the old

woman, carefully bolting the grate behind them, remained on the post as a sort of sentinel.

"Ony ane or twa o' ye come forward," said the outlaw, "and take her frae my hand haill and sound."

Hobbie advanced eagerly, to meet his betrothed bride. Earnscliff followed more slowly, to guard against

treachery. Suddenly Hobbie slackened his pace in the deepest mortification, while that of Earnscliff was

hastened by impatient surprise. It was not Grace Armstrong, but Miss Isabella Vere, whose liberation had

"Where is Grace? where is Grace Armstrong?" exclaimed Hobbie, in the extremity of wrath and indignation.

"Not in my hands," answered Westburnflat; "ye may search the tower, if ye misdoubt me."

"You false villain, you shall account for her, or die on the spot," said Elliot, presenting his gun.

But his companions, who now came up, instantly disarmed him of his weapon, exclaiming, all at once, "Hand

and glove! faith and troth! Haud a care, Hobbie we maun keep our faith wi' Westburnflat, were he the

Thus protected, the outlaw recovered his audacity, which had been somewhat daunted by the menacing

"I have kept my word, sirs," he said, "and I look to have nae wrang amang ye. If this is no the prisoner ye

sought," he said, addressing Earnscliff, "ye'll render her back to me again. I am answerable for her to those

"For God's sake, Mr. Earnscliff, protect me!" said Miss Vere, clinging to her deliverer; "do not you abandon

"Fear nothing," whispered Earnscliff, "I will protect you with my life." Then turning to Westburnflat,

"For that matter, Earnscliff," answered the freebooter, "I can answer to them that has better right to ask me

than you have; but if you come with an armed force, and take her awa' from them that her friends lodged her

wi', how will you answer THATBut it's your ain affairNae single man can keep a tower against twenty

"He lies most falsely," said Isabella; "he carried me off by violence from my father."

"Maybe he only wanted ye to think sae, hinny," replied the robber; "but it's nae business o' mine, let it be as it

"Back to you, fellow? Surely no," answered Earnscliff; "I will protect Miss Vere, and escort her safely

"Ay, ay, maybe you and her hae settled that already," said Willie of Westburnflat.

"And Grace?" interrupted Hobbie, shaking himself loose from the friends who had been preaching to him the

sanctity of the safe conduct, upon the faith of which the freebooter had ventured from his tower,"Where's

Westburnflat, thus pressed, after calling out, "Godsake, Hobbie, hear me a gliff!" fairly turned his back and

fled. His mother stood ready to open and shut the grate; but Hobbie struck at the freebooter as he entered with

so much force, that the sword made a considerable cleft in the lintel of the vaulted door, which is still shown

as a memorial of the superior strength of those who lived in the days of yore. Ere Hobbie could repeat the

blow, the door was shut and secured, and he was compelled to retreat to his companions, who were now

preparing to break up the siege of Westburnflat. They insisted upon his accompanying them in their return.

"Ye hae broken truce already," said old Dick of the Dingle; "an we takena the better care, ye'll play mair

gowk's tricks, and make yoursell the laughingstock of the haill country, besides having your friends charged

with slaughter under trust. Bide till the meeting at Castleton, as ye hae greed; and if he disna make ye

amends, then we'll hae it out o' his heart's blood. But let us gang reasonably to wark and keep our tryst, and

This coldblooded reasoning went ill down with the unfortunate lover; but, as he could only obtain the

assistance of his neighbours and kinsmen on their own terms, he was compelled to acquiesce in their notions

Earnscliff now requested the assistance of a few of the party to convey Miss Vere to her father's castle of

Ellieslaw, to which she was peremptory in desiring to be conducted. This was readily granted; and five or six

young men agreed to attend him as an escort. Hobbie was not of the number. Almost heartbroken by the

events of the day, and his final disappointment, he returned moodily home to take such measures as he could

for the sustenance and protection of his family, and to arrange with his neighbours the farther steps which

should be adopted for the recovery of Grace Armstrong. The rest of the party dispersed in different directions,

as soon as they had crossed the morass. The outlaw and his mother watched them from the tower, until they

Incensed at what he deemed the coldness of his friends, in a cause which interested him so nearly, Hobbie

had shaken himself free of their company, and was now on his solitary road homeward. "The fiend founder

thee!" said he, as he spurred impatiently his overfatigued and stumbling horse; "thou art like a' the rest o'

them. Hae I not bred thee, and fed thee, and dressed thee wi' mine ain hand, and wouldst thou snapper now

and break my neck at my utmost need? But thou'rt e'en like the lavethe farthest off o' them a' is my cousin

ten times removed, and day or night I wad hae served them wi' my best blood; and now, I think they show

mair regard to the common thief of Westburnflat than to their ain kinsman. But I should see the lights now in

HeughfootWae's me!" he continued, recollecting himself, "there will neither coal nor candlelight shine

in the Heughfoot ony mair! An it werena for my mother and sisters, and poor Grace, I could find in my

heart to put spurs to the beast, and loup ower the scaur into the water to make an end o't a'."In this

disconsolate mood he turned his horse's bridle towards the cottage in which his family had found refuge.

As he approached the door, he heard whispering and tittering amongst his sisters. "The deevil's in the

women," said poor Hobbie; "they would nicker, and laugh, and giggle, if their best friend was lying a

corpand yet I am glad they can keep up their hearts sae weel, poor silly things; but the dirdum fa's on me,

While he thus meditated, he was engaged in fastening up his horse in a shed. "Thou maun do without

horsesheet and surcingle now, lad," he said, addressing the animal; "you and me hae had a downcome alike;

He was interrupted by the youngest of his sisters, who came running out, and, speaking in a constrained

voice, as if to stifle some emotion, called out to him, "What are ye doing there, Hobbie, fiddling about the

naig, and there's ane frae Cumberland been waiting here for ye this hour and mair? Haste ye in, man; I'll take

"Ane frae Cumberland!" exclaimed Elliot; and putting the bridle of his horse into the hand of his sister, he

rushed into the cottage. "Where is he? where is he!" he exclaimed, glancing eagerly around, and seeing only

"He doughtna bide an instant langer," said the elder sister, still with a suppressed laugh.

"Hout fie, bairns!" said the old lady, with something of a good humoured reproof, "ye shouldna vex your

billy Hobbie that way. Look round, my bairn, and see if there isna ane here mair than ye left this morning."

"There's four of us now, Hobbie, lad," said the youngest, who at this moment entered.

In an instant Hobbie had in his arms Grace Armstrong, who, with one of his sister's plaids around her, had

"It wasna my fault," said Grace, endeavouring to cover her face with her hands to hide at once her blushes,

and escape the storm of hearty kisses with which her bridegroom punished her simple stratagem,"It wasna

my fault, Hobbie; ye should kiss Jeanie and the rest o' them, for they hae the wyte o't."

"And so I will," said Hobbie, and embraced and kissed his sisters and grandmother a hundred times, while the

whole party half laughed, halfcried, in the extremity of their joy. "I am the happiest man," said Hobbie,

throwing himself down on a seat, almost exhausted,"I am the happiest man in the world!"

"Then, O my dear bairn," said the good old dame, who lost no opportunity of teaching her lesson of religion

at those moments when the heart was best open to receive it,"Then, O my son, give praise to Him that

brings smiles out o' tears and joy out o' grief, as He brought light out o' darkness and the world out o'

naething. Was it not my word, that if ye could say His will be done, ye might hae cause to say His name be

"It wasit was your word, grannie; and I do praise Him for His mercy, and for leaving me a good parent

when my ain were gane," said honest Hobbie, taking her hand, "that puts me in mind to think of Him, baith in

There was a solemn pause of one or two minutes employed in the exercise of mental devotion, which

expressed, in purity and sincerity, the gratitude of the affectionate family to that Providence who had

Hobbie's first enquiries were concerning the adventures which Grace had undergone. They were told at

length, but amounted in substance to this:That she was awaked by the noise which the ruffians made in

breaking into the house, and by the resistance made by one or two of the servants, which was soon

overpowered; that, dressing herself hastily, she ran downstairs, and having seen, in the scuffle, Westburnflat's

vizard drop off, imprudently named him by his name, and besought him for mercy; that the ruffian instantly

stopped her mouth, dragged her from the house, and placed her on horseback, behind one of his associates.

"I'll break the accursed neck of him," said Hobbie, "if there werena another Graeme in the land but himsell!"

She proceeded to say, that she was carried southward along with the party, and the spoil which they drove

before them, until they had crossed the Border. Suddenly a person, known to her as a kinsman of

Westburnflat, came riding very fast after the marauders, and told their leader, that his cousin had learnt from

a sure hand that no luck would come of it, unless the lass was restored to her friends. After some discussion,

the chief of the party seemed to acquiesce. Grace was placed behind her new guardian, who pursued in

silence, and with great speed, the leastfrequented path to the Heughfoot, and ere evening closed, set down

the fatigued and terrified damsel within a quarter of a mile of the dwelling of her friends. Many and sincere

As these emotions subsided, less pleasing considerations began to intrude themselves.

"This is a miserable place for ye a'," said Hobbie, looking around him; "I can sleep weel eneugh mysell outby

beside the naig, as I hae done mony a lang night on the hills; but how ye are to put yoursells up, I canna see!

And what's waur, I canna mend it; and what's waur than a', the morn may come, and the day after that,

"It was a cowardly cruel thing," said one of the sisters, looking round, "to harry a puir family to the bare wa's

"And leave us neither stirk nor stot," said the youngest brother, who now entered, "nor sheep nor lamb, nor

"If they had ony quarrel wi' us," said Harry, the second brother, "were we na ready to have fought it out? And

that we should have been a' frae hame, too,ane and a' upon the hillOdd, an we had been at hame, Will

Graeme's stamach shouldna hae wanted its morning; but it's biding him, is it na, Hobbie?"

"Our neighbours hae taen a day at the Castleton to gree wi' him at the sight o' men," said Hobbie, mournfully;

"they behoved to have it a' their ain gate, or there was nae help to be got at their hands."

"To gree wi' him!" exclaimed both his brothers at once, "after siccan an act of stouthrife as hasna been heard

"Very true, billies, and my blood was e'en boiling at it; but the sight o' Grace Armstrong has settled it

"But the stocking, Hobbie'" said John Elliot; "we're utterly ruined. Harry and I hae been to gather what was

on the outby land, and there's scarce a cloot left. I kenna how we're to carry onWe maun a' gang to the

wars, I think. Westburnflat hasna the means, e'en if he had the will, to make up our loss; there's nae mends to

be got out o' him, but what ye take out o' his banes. He hasna a fourfooted creature but the vicious blood

thing he rides on, and that's sair trash'd wi' his night wark. We are ruined stoop and roop."

Hobbie cast a mournful glance on Grace Armstrong, who returned it with a downcast look and a gentle sigh.

"Dinna be cast down, bairns," said the grandmother, "we hae gude friends that winna forsake us in adversity.

There's Sir Thomas Kittleloof is my third cousin by the mother's side, and he has come by a hantle siller, and

been made a knightbaronet into the bargain, for being ane o' the commissioners at the Union."

"He wadna gie a bodle to save us frae famishing," said Hobbie; "and, if he did, the bread that I bought wi't

would stick in my throat, when I thought it was part of the price of puir auld Scotland's crown and

"He's in the tolbooth, motherhe's in the Heart of MidLouden for a thousand merk he borrowed from

"Ye forget, grannie, ye forget we want help oursells," said Hobbie, somewhat peevishly.

"Troth did I, hinny," replied the goodnatured lady, "just at the instant; it's sae natural to think on ane's blude

"He has ower little o' his ain; and siccan a name to keep up, it wad be a shame," said Hobbie, "to burden him

wi' our distress. And I'll tell ye, grannie, it's needless to sit rhyming ower the style of a' your kith, kin, and

allies, as if there was a charm in their braw names to do us good; the grandees hae forgotten us, and those of

our ain degree hae just little eneugh to gang on wi' themsells; ne'er a friend hae we that can, or will, help us to

"Then, Hobbie, me maun trust in Him that can raise up friends and fortune out o' the bare moor, as they say."

Hobbie sprung upon his feet. "Ye are right, grannie!" he exclaimed; "ye are right. I do ken a friend on the

bare moor, that baith can and will help usThe turns o' this day hae dung my head clean hirdiegirdie. I left

as muckle gowd lying on MucklestaneMoor this morning as would plenish the house and stock the

Heughfoot twice ower, and I am certain sure Elshie wadna grudge us the use of it."

"What Elshie should I mean, but Canny Elshie, the Wight o' Mucklestane," replied Hobbie.

"God forfend, my bairn, you should gang to fetch water out o' broken cisterns, or seek for relief frae them that

deal wi' the Evil One! There was never luck in their gifts, nor grace in their paths. And the haill country kens

that body Elshie's an unco man. O, if there was the law, and the douce quiet administration of justice, that

makes a kingdom flourish in righteousness, the like o' them suldna be suffered to live! The wizard and the

"Troth, mother," answered Hobbie, "ye may say what ye like, but I am in the mind that witches and warlocks

havena half the power they had lang syne; at least, sure am I, that ae illdeviser, like auld Ellieslaw, or ae

illdoer, like that dd villain Westburnflat, is a greater plague and abomination in a country side than a

haill curnie o' the warst witches that ever capered on a broomstick, or played cantrips on Fastern's E'en. It

wad hae been lang or Elshie had burnt down my house and barns, and I am determined to try if he will do

aught to build them up again. He's weel kend a skilfu' man ower a' the country, as far as Brough under

"Bide a wee, my bairn; mind his benefits havena thriven wi' a'body. Jock Howden died o' the very same

disorder Elshie pretended to cure him of, about the fa' o' the leaf; and though he helped Lambside's cow weel

out o' the moorill, yet the loupingill's been sairer amane; his sheep than ony season before. And then I have

heard he uses sic words abusing human nature, that's like a fleeing in the face of Providence; and ye mind ye

said yoursell, the first time ye ever saw him, that he was mair like a bogle than a living thing."

"Hout, mother," said Hobbie, "Elshie's no that bad a chield; he's a grewsome spectacle for a crooked disciple,

to be sure, and a rough talker, but his bark is waur than his bite; sae, if I had anes something to eat, for I

havena had a morsel ower my throat this day, I wad streek mysell down for twa or three hours aside the beast,

"You wearied?" said Harry; "shame on ye! I have kend ye keep the saddle fourandtwenty hours thegither,

"The night's very dark," said Hobbie, rising and looking through the casement of the cottage; "and, to speak

truth, and shame the deil, though Elshie's a real honest fallow, yet somegate I would rather take daylight wi'

This frank avowal put a stop to further argument; and Hobbie, having thus compromised matters between the

rashness of his brother's counsel, and the timid cautions which he received from his grandmother, refreshed

himself with such food as the cottage afforded; and, after a cordial salutation all round, retired to the shed,

and stretched himself beside his trusty palfrey. His brothers shared between them some trusses of clean straw,

disposed in the stall usually occupied by old Annaple's cow; and the females arranged themselves for repose

With the first dawn of morning, Hobbie arose; and, having rubbed down and saddled his horse, he set forth to

MucklestaneMoor. He avoided the company of either of his brothers, from an idea that the Dwarf was most

"The creature," said he to himself, as he went along, "is no neighbourly; ae body at a time is fully mair than

he weel can abide. I wonder if he's looked out o' the crib o' him to gather up the bag o' siller. If he hasna done

that, it will hae been a braw windfa' for somebody, and I'll be finely flung.Come, Tarras," said he to his

horse, striking him at the same time with his spur, "make mair fit, man; we maun be first on the field if we

He was now on the heath, which began to be illuminated by the beams of the rising sun; the gentle declivity

which he was descending presented him a distinct, though distant view, of the Dwarf's dwelling. The door

opened, and Hobbie witnessed with his own eyes that phenomenon which he had frequently heard mentioned.

Two human figures (if that of the Dwarf could be termed such) issued from the solitary abode of the Recluse,

and stood as if in converse together in the open air. The taller form then stooped, as if taking something up

which lay beside the door of the hut, then both moved forward a little way, and again halted, as in deep

conference. All Hobbie's superstitious terrors revived on witnessing this'spectacle. That the Dwarf would

open his dwelling to a mortal guest, was as improbable as that any one would choose voluntarily to be his

nocturnal visitor; and, under full conviction that he beheld a wizard holding intercourse with his familiar

spirit, Hobbie pulled in at once his breath and his bridle, resolved not to incur the indignation of either by a

hasty intrusion on their conference. They were probably aware of his approach, for he had not halted for a

moment before the Dwarf returned to his cottage; and the taller figure who had accompanied him, glided

round the enclosure of the garden, and seemed to disappear from the eyes of the admiring Hobbie.

"Saw ever mortal the like o' that!" said Elliot; "but my case is desperate, sae, if he were Beelzebub himsell,

Yet, notwithstanding his assumed courage, he slackened his pace, when, nearly upon the very spot where he

had last seen the tall figure, he discerned, as if lurking among the long heather, a small black roughlooking

"He has nae dog that ever I heard of," said Hobbie, "but mony a deil about his handlord forgie me for

saying sic a word!It keeps its grund, be what it likeI'm judging it's a badger; but whae kens what shapes

thae bogies will take to fright a body? it will maybe start up like a lion or a crocodile when I come nearer. I'se

e'en drive a stage at it, for if it change its shape when I'm ower near, Tarras will never stand it; and it will be

He therefore cautiously threw a stone at the object, which continued motionless. "It's nae living thing, after

a'," said Hobbie, approaching, "but the very bag o' siller he flung out o' the window yesterday! and that other

queer lang creature has just brought it sae muckle farther on the way to me. He then advanced and lifted the

heavy fur pouch, which was quite full of gold. "Mercy on us!" said Hobbie, whose heart fluttered between

glee at the revival of his hopes and prospects in life, and suspicion of the purpose for which this assistance

was afforded him"Mercy on us! it's an awfu' thing to touch what has been sae lately in the claws of

something no canny, I canna shake mysell loose o' the belief that there has been some jookery paukery of

Satan's in a' this; but I am determined to conduct mysell like an honest man and a good Christian, come o't

He advanced accordingly to the cottage door, and having knocked repeatedly without receiving any answer,

he at length elevated his voice and addressed the inmate of the hut. "Elshie! Father Elshie! I ken ye're within

doors, and wauking, for I saw ye at the doorcheek as I cam ower the bent; will ye come out and speak just a

gliff to ane that has mony thanks to gie ye?It was a' true ye tell'd me about Westburnflat; but he's sent back

Grace safe and skaithless, sae there's nae ill happened yet but what may be suffered or sustained;Wad ye

but come out a gliff; man, or but say ye're listening?Aweel, since ye winna answer, I'se e'en proceed wi'

my tale. Ye see I hae been thinking it wad be a sair thing on twa young folk, like Grace and me, to put aff our

marriage for mony years till I was abroad and came back again wi' some gear; and they say folk maunna take

booty in the wars as they did lang syne, and the queen's pay is a sma' matter; there's nae gathering gear on

thatand then my grandame's auldand my sisters wad sit peengin' at the ingleside for want o' me to ding

them aboutand Earnscliff, or the neighbourhood, or maybe your ainsell, Elshie, might want some good

turn that Hob Elliot could do yeand it's a pity that the auld house o' the Heughfoot should be wrecked

a'thegither. Sae I was thinkingbut deil hae me, that I should say sae," continued he, checking himself, "if I

can bring mysell to ask a favour of ane that winna sae muckle as ware a word on me, to tell me if he hears me

"Say what thou wiltdo what thou wilt," answered the Dwarf from his cabin, "but begone, and leave me at

"Weel, weel," replied Elliot, "since ye are willing to hear me, I'se make my tale short. Since ye are sae kind as

to say ye are content to lend me as muckle siller as will stock and plenish the Heughfoot, I am content, on

my part, to accept the courtesy wi' mony kind thanks; and troth, I think it will be as safe in my hands as

yours, if ye leave it flung about in that gate for the first loon body to lift, forbye the risk o' bad neighbours

that can win through steekit doors and lockfast places, as I can tell to my cost. I say, since ye hae sae muckle

consideration for me, I'se be blithe to accept your kindness; and my mother and me (she's a liferenter, and I

am fiar, o' the lands o' Wideopen) would grant you a wadset, or an heritable bond, for the siller, and to pay

the annual rent halfyearly; and Saunders Wyliecoat to draw the bond, and you to be at nae charge wi' the

"Cut short thy jargon, and begone," said the Dwarf; "thy loquacious bullheaded honesty makes thee a more

intolerable plague than the lightfingered courtier who would take a man's all without troubling him with

either thanks, explanation, or apology. Hence, I say! thou art one of those tame slaves whose word is as good

as their bond. Keep the money, principal and interest, until I demand it of thee."

"But," continued the pertinacious Borderer, "we are a' lifelike and deathlike, Elshie, and there really should

be some black and white on this transaction. Sae just make me a minute, or missive, in ony form ye like, and

I'se write it fair ower, and subscribe it before famous witnesses. Only, Elshie, I wad wuss ye to pit naething

in't that may be prejudicial to my salvation; for I'll hae the minister to read it ower, and it wad only be

exposing yoursell to nae purpose. And now I'm ganging awa', for ye'll be wearied o' my cracks, and I am

wearied wi' cracking without an answerand I'se bring ye a bit o' bride'scake ane o' thae days, and maybe

bring Grace to see you. Ye wad like to see Grace, man, for as dour as ye areEh, Lord I I wish he may be

weel, that was a sair grane! or, maybe, he thought I was speaking of heavenly grace, and no of Grace

Armstrong. Poor man, I am very doubtfu' o' his condition; but I am sure he is as kind to me as if I were his

Hobbie now relieved his benefactor of his presence, and rode blithely home to display his treasure, and

consult upon the means of repairing the damage which his fortune had sustained through the aggression of the

The course of our story must here revert a little, to detail the circumstances which had placed Miss Vere in

the unpleasant situation from which she was unexpectedly, and indeed unintentionally liberated, by the

appearance of Earnscliff and Elliot, with their friends and followers, before the Tower of Westburnflat.

On the morning preceding the night in which Hobbie's house was plundered and burnt, Miss Vere was

requested by her father to accompany him in a walk through a distant part of the romantic grounds which lay

round his castle of Ellieslaw. "To hear was to obey," in the true style of Oriental despotism; but Isabella

trembled in silence while she followed her father through rough paths, now winding by the side of the river,

now ascending the cliffs which serve for its banks. A single servant, selected perhaps for his stupidity, was

the only person who attended them. From her father's silence, Isabella little doubted that he had chosen this

distant and sequestered scene to resume the argument which they had so frequently maintained upon the

subject of Sir Frederick's addresses, and that he was meditating in what manner he should most effectually

impress upon her the necessity of receiving him as her suitor. But her fears seemed for some time to be

unfounded. The only sentences which her father from time to time addressed to her, respected the beauties of

the romantic landscape through which they strolled, and which varied its features at every step. To these

observations, although they seemed to come from a heart occupied by more gloomy as well as more

important cares, Isabella endeavoured to answer in a manner as free and unconstrained as it was possible for

her to assume, amid the involuntary apprehensions which crowded upon her imagination.

Sustaining with mutual difficulty a desultory conversation, they at length gained the centre of a small wood,

composed of large oaks, intermingled with birches, mountainashes, hazel, holly, and a variety of

underwood. The boughs of the tall trees met closely above, and the underwood filled up each interval

between their trunks below. The spot on which they stood was rather more open; still, however, embowered

under the natural arcade of tall trees, and darkened on the sides for a space around by a great and lively

"And here, Isabella," said Mr. Vere, as he pursued the conversation, so often resumed, so often dropped,

"To Friendship, sir!" said Miss Vere; "and why on this gloomy and sequestered spot, rather than elsewhere?"

"O, the propriety of the LOCALE is easily vindicated," replied her father, with a sneer. "You know, Miss

Vere (for you, I am well aware, are a learned young lady), you know, that the Romans were not satisfied with

embodying, for the purpose of worship, each useful quality and moral virtue to which they could give a

name; but they, moreover, worshipped the same under each variety of titles and attributes which could give a

distinct shade, or individual character, to the virtue in question. Now, for example, the Friendship to whom a

temple should be here dedicated, is not Masculine Friendship, which abhors and despises duplicity, art, and

disguise; but Female Friendship, which consists in little else than a mutual disposition on the part of the

friends, as they call themselves, to abet each other in obscure fraud and petty intrigue."

"Only just," said her father; "a humble copier I am from nature, with the advantage of contemplating two

"If I have been unfortunate enough to offend, sir, I can conscientiously excuse Miss Ilderton from being

"Indeed! how came you, then," said Mr. Vere, "by the flippancy of speech, and pertness of argument, by

which you have disgusted Sir Frederick, and given me of late such deep offence?"

"If my manner has been so unfortunate as to displease you, sir, it is impossible for me to apologize too

deeply, or too sincerely; but I cannot confess the same contrition for having answered Sir Frederick flippantly

when he pressed me rudely. Since he forgot I was a lady, it was time to show him that I am at least a

"Reserve, then, your pertness for those who press you on the topic, Isabella," said her father coldly; "for my

"God bless you, my dear father," said Isabella, seizing his reluctant hand "there is nothing you can impose on

me, save the task of listening to this man's persecution, that I will call, or think, a hardship."

"You are very obliging, Miss Vere, when it happens to suit you to be dutiful," said her unrelenting father,

forcing himself at the same time from the affectionate grasp of her hand; "but henceforward, child, I shall

save myself the trouble of offering you unpleasant advice on any topic. You must look to yourself."

At this moment four ruffians rushed upon them. Mr. Vere and his servant drew their hangers, which it was

the fashion of the time to wear, and attempted to defend themselves and protect Isabella. But while each of

them was engaged by an antagonist, she was forced into the thicket by the two remaining villains, who placed

her and themselves on horses which stood ready behind the copse wood. They mounted at the same time,

and, placing her between them, set of at a round gallop, holding the reins of her horse on each side. By many

an obscure and winding path, over dale and down, through moss and moor, she was conveyed to the tower of

Westburnflat, where she remained strictly watched, but not otherwise illtreated, under the guardianship of

the old woman, to whose son that retreat belonged. No entreaties could prevail upon the hag to give Miss

Vere any information on the object of her being carried forcibly off, and confined in this secluded place. The

arrival of Earnscliff, with a strong party of horsemen, before the tower, alarmed the robber. As he had already

directed Grace Armstrong to be restored to her friends, it did not occur to him that this unwelcome visit was

on her account; and seeing at the head of the party, Earnscliff, whose attachment to Miss Vere was whispered

in the country, he doubted not that her liberation was the sole object of the attack upon his fastness. The dread

of personal consequences compelled him to deliver up his prisoner in the manner we have already related.

At the moment the tramp of horses was heard which carried off the daughter of Ellieslaw, her father fell to

the earth, and his servant, a stout young fellow, who was gaining ground on the ruffian with whom he had

been engaged, left the combat to come to his master's assistance, little doubting that he had received a mortal

wound, Both the villains immediately desisted from farther combat, and, retreating into the thicket, mounted

their horses, and went off at full speed after their companions. Meantime, Dixon had the satisfaction to find

Mr. Vere not only alive, but unwounded. He had overreached himself, and stumbled, it seemed, over the root

of a tree, in making too eager a blow at his antagonist. The despair he felt at his daughter's disappearance,

was, in Dixon's phrase, such as would have melted the heart of a whin stane, and he was so much exhausted

by his feelings, and the vain researches which he made to discover the track of the ravishers, that a

considerable time elapsed ere he reached home, and communicated the alarm to his domestics.

"Speak not to me, Sir Frederick," he said impatiently; "You are no fathershe was my child, an ungrateful

one! I fear, but still my childmy only child. Where is Miss Ilderton? she must know something of this. It

corresponds with what I was informed of her schemes. Go, Dixon, call Ratcliffe here Let him come without a

"I say, Dixon," continued Mr. Vere, in an altered tone, "let Mr. Ratcliffe know, I beg the favour of his

company on particular business.Ah! my dear sir," he proceeded, as if noticing him for the first time, "you

are the very man whose advice can be of the utmost service to me in this cruel extremity."

"What has happened, Mr. Vere, to discompose you?" said Mr, Ratcliffe, gravely; and while the Laird of

Ellieslaw details to him, with the most animated gestures of grief and indignation, the singular adventure of

the morning, we shall take the opportunity to inform our readers of the relative circumstances in which these

In early youth, Mr. Vere of Ellieslaw had been remarkable for a career of dissipation, which, in advanced life,

he had exchanged for the no less destructive career of dark and turbulent ambition. In both cases, he had

gratified the predominant passion without respect to the diminution of his private fortune, although, where

such inducements were wanting, he was deemed close, avaricious, and grasping. His affairs being much

embarrassed by his earlier extravagance, he went to England, where he was understood to have formed a very

advantageous matrimonial connexion. He was many years absent from his family estate. Suddenly and

unexpectedly he returned a widower, bringing with him his daughter, then a girl of about ten years old. From

this moment his expense seemed unbounded, in the eyes of the simple inhabitants of his native mountains. It

was supposed he must necessarily have plunged himself deeply in debt. Yet he continued to live in the same

lavish expense, until some months before the commencement of our narrative, when the public opinion of his

embarrassed circumstances was confirmed, by the residence of Mr. Ratcliffe at Ellieslaw Castle, who, by the

tacit consent, though obviously to the great displeasure, of the lord of the mansion, seemed, from the moment

of his arrival, to assume and exercise a predominant and unaccountable influence in the management of his

Mr. Ratcliffe was a grave, steady, reserved man, in an advanced period of life. To those with whom he had

occasion to speak upon business, he appeared uncommonly well versed in all its forms. With others he held

little communication; but in any casual intercourse, or conversation, displayed the powers of an active and

wellinformed mind. For some time before taking up his final residence at the castle, he had been an

occasional visitor there, and was at such times treated by Mr. Vere (contrary to his general practice towards

those who were inferior to him in rank) with marked attention, and even deference. Yet his arrival always

appeared to be an embarrassment to his host, and his departure a relief; so that, when he became a constant

inmate of the family, it was impossible not to observe indications of the displeasure with which Mr. Vere

regarded his presence. Indeed, their intercourse formed a singular mixture of confidence and constraint. Mr.

Vere's most important affairs were regulated by Mr. Ratcliffe; and although he was none of those indulgent

men of fortune, who, too indolent to manage their own business, are glad to devolve it upon another, yet, in

many instances, he was observed to give up his own judgment, and submit to the contrary opinions which

Nothing seemed to vex Mr. Vere more than when strangers indicated any observation of the state of tutelage

under which he appeared to labour. When it was noticed by Sir Frederick, or any of his intimates, he

sometimes repelled their remarks haughtily and indignantly, and sometimes endeavoured to evade them, by

saying, with a forced laugh, "That Ratcliffe knew his own importance, but that he was the most honest and

skilful fellow in the world; and that it would be impossible for him to manage his English affairs without his

advice and assistance." Such was the person who entered the room at the moment Mr. Vere was summoning

him to his presence, and who now heard with surprise, mingled with obvious incredulity, the hasty narrative

Her father concluded, addressing Sir Frederick and the other gentlemen, who stood around in astonishment,

"And now, my friends, you see the most unhappy father in Scotland. Lend me your assistance,

gentlemengive me your advice, Mr. Ratcliffe. I am incapable of acting, or thinking, under the unexpected

"Let us take our horses, call our attendants, and scour the country in pursuit of the villains," said Sir

"Is there no one whom you can suspect," said Ratcliffe, gravely, "of having some motive for this strange

crime? These are not the days of romance, when ladies are carried off merely for their beauty."

"I fear," said Mr. Vere, "I can too well account for this strange incident. Read this letter, which Miss Lucy

Ilderton thought fit to address from my house of Ellieslaw to young Mr. Earnscliff; whom, of all men, I have

a hereditary right to call my enemy. You see she writes to him as the confidant of a passion which he has the

assurance to entertain for my daughter; tells him she serves his cause with her friend very ardently, but that

he has a friend in the garrison who serves him yet more effectually. Look particularly at the pencilled

passages, Mr. Ratcliffe, where this meddling girl recommends bold measures, with an assurance that his suit

"And you argue, from this romantic letter of a very romantic young lady, Mr. Vere," said Ratcliffe, "that

young Earnscliff has carried off your daughter, and committed a very great and criminal act of violence, on

"What else CAN you think?" said Sir Frederick; "or who else could have any motive for committing such a

"Were that the best mode of fixing the guilt," said Mr. Ratcliffe, calmly, "there might easily be pointed out

persons to whom such actions are more congenial, and who have also sufficient motives of instigation.

Supposing it were judged advisable to remove Miss Vere to some place in which constraint might be

exercised upon her inclinations to a degree which cannot at present be attempted under the roof of Ellieslaw

"I say," returned Sir Frederick, "that although Mr. Vere may choose to endure in Mr. Ratcliffe freedoms

totally inconsistent with his situation in life, I will not permit such license of innuendo, by word or look, to be

"And I say," said young Mareschal of MareschalWells, who was also a guest at the castle, "that you are all

stark mad to be standing wrangling here, instead of going in pursuit of the ruffians."

"I have ordered off the domestics already in the track most likely to overtake them," said Mr. Vere "if you

will favour me with your company, we will follow them, and assist in the search."

The efforts of the party were totally unsuccessful, probably because Ellieslaw directed the pursuit to proceed

in the direction of Earnscliff Tower, under the supposition that the owner would prove to be the author of the

violence, so that they followed a direction diametrically opposite to that in which the ruffians had actually

proceeded. In the evening they returned, harassed and out of spirits. But other guests had, in the meanwhile,

arrived at the castle; and, after the recent loss sustained by the owner had been related, wondered at, and

lamented, the recollection of it was, for the present, drowned in the discussion of deep political intrigues, of

Several of the gentlemen who took part in this divan were Catholics, and all of them stanch Jacobites, whose

hopes were at present at the highest pitch, as an invasion, in favour of the Pretender, was daily expected from

France, which Scotland, between the defenceless state of its garrisons and fortified places, and the general

disaffection of the inhabitants, was rather prepared to welcome than to resist. Ratcliffe, who neither sought to

assist at their consultations on this subject, nor was invited to do so, had, in the meanwhile, retired to his own

apartment. Miss Ilderton was sequestered from society in a sort of honourable confinement, "until," said Mr.

Vere, "she should be safely conveyed home to her father's house," an opportunity for which occurred on the

The domestics could not help thinking it remarkable how soon the loss of Miss Vere, and the strange manner

in which it had happened, seemed to be forgotten by the other guests at the castle. They knew not, that those

the most interested in her fate were well acquainted with the cause of her being carried off, and the place of

her retreat; and that the others, in the anxious and doubtful moments which preceded the breaking forth of a

conspiracy, were little accessible to any feelings but what arose immediately out of their own machinations.

The researches after Miss Vere were (for the sake of appearances, perhaps) resumed on the succeeding day,

with similar bad success, and the party were returning towards Ellieslaw in the evening.

"It is singular," said Mareschal to Ratcliffe, "that four horsemen and a female prisoner should have passed

through the country without leaving the slightest trace of their passage. One would think they had traversed

"Men may often," answered Ratcliffe, "arrive at the knowledge of that which is, from discovering that which

is not. We have now scoured every road, path, and track leading from the castle, in all the various points of

the compass, saving only that intricate and difficult pass which leads southward down the Westburn, and

"Then I will ask it instantly," said Mareschal; and, addressing Mr. Vere, "I am informed, sir," said he, "there

"O," said Sir Frederick, laughing, "we know the owner of Westburnflat wella wild lad, that knows little

difference between his neighbour's goods and his own; but, withal, very honest to his principles: he would

"Besides," said Mr. Vere, smiling mysteriously, "he had other tow on his distaff last night. Have you not

heard young Elliot of the Heughfoot has had his house burnt, and his cattle driven away, because he refused

The company smiled upon each other, as at hearing of an exploit which favoured their own views.

"Yet, nevertheless," resumed Mareschal, "I think we ought to ride in this direction also, otherwise we shall

No reasonable objection could be offered to this proposal, and the party turned their horses' heads towards

They had not proceeded very far in that direction when the trampling of horses was heard, and a small body

"There comes Earnscliff," said Mareschal; "I know his bright bay with the star in his front."

"And there is my daughter along with him," exclaimed Vere, furiously. "Who shall call my suspicions false

or injurious now? Gentlemenfriendslend me the assistance of your swords for the recovery of my

He unsheathed his weapon, and was imitated by Sir Frederick and several of the party, who prepared to

"They come to us in all peace and security," said Mareschal Wells; "let us first hear what account they give

us of this mysterious affair. If Miss Vere has sustained the slightest insult or injury from Earnscliff, I will be

"You do me wrong by your suspicions, Mareschal," continued Vere; "you are the last I would have expected

"You injure yourself, Ellieslaw, by your violence, though the cause may excuse it."

He then advanced a little before the rest, and called out, with a loud voice,"Stand, Mr. Earnscliff; or do

you and Miss Vere advance alone to meet us. You are charged with having carried that lady off from her

father's house; and we are here in arms to shed our best blood for her recovery, and for bringing to justice

"And who would do that more willingly than I, Mr. Mareschal?" said Earnscliff, haughtily,"than I, who

had the satisfaction this morning to liberate her from the dungeon in which I found her confined, and who am

"It is," answered Isabella, eagerly,"it is so; for Heaven's sake sheathe your swords. I will swear by all that

is sacred, that I was carried off by ruffians, whose persons and object were alike unknown to me, and am now

"By whom, and wherefore, could this have been done?" pursued Mareschal."Had you no knowledge of the

But ere either question could be answered, Ellieslaw advanced, and, returning his sword to the scabbard, cut

"When I know," he said, "exactly how much I owe to Mr. Earnscliff, he may rely on suitable

acknowledgments; meantime," taking the bridle of Miss Vere's horse, "thus far I thank him for replacing my

A sullen bend of the head was returned by Earnscliff with equal haughtiness; and Ellieslaw, turning back with

his daughter upon the road to his own house, appeared engaged with her in a conference so earnest, that the

rest of the company judged it improper to intrude by approaching them too nearly. In the meantime,

Earnscliff, as he took leave of the other gentlemen belonging to Ellieslaw's party, said aloud, "Although I am

unconscious of any circumstance in my conduct that can authorize such a suspicion, I cannot but observe, that

Mr. Vere seems to believe that I have had some hand in the atrocious violence which has been offered to his

daughter. I request you, gentlemen, to take notice of my explicit denial of a charge so dishonourable; and

that, although I can pardon the bewildering feelings of a father in such a moment, yet, if any other gentleman"

(he looked hard at Sir Frederick Langley) "thinks my word and that of Miss Vere, with the evidence of my

friends who accompany me, too slight for my exculpation, I will be happymost happyto repel the

"And I'll be his second," said Simon of Hackburn, "and take up ony twa o' ye, gentle or semple, laird or loon;

"Who is that roughlooking fellow?" said Sir Frederick Langley, "and what has he to do with the quarrels of

"I'se be a lad frae the Hie Te'iot," said Simon, "and I'se quarrel wi' ony body I like, except the king, or the

"Come," said; Mareschal, "let us have no brawls.Mr. Earnscliff; although we do not think alike in some

things, I trust we may be opponents, even enemies, if fortune will have it so, without losing our respect for

birth, fairplay, and each other. I believe you as innocent of this matter as I am myself; and I will pledge

myself that my cousin Ellieslaw, as soon as the perplexity attending these sudden events has left his judgment

to its free exercise, shall handsomely acknowledge the very important service you have this day rendered

"To have served your cousin is a sufficient reward in itself Good evening, gentlemen," continued

Then saluting Mareschal with courtesy, and the rest of the party with indifference, Earnscliff turned his horse

and rode towards the Heughfoot, to concert measures with Hobbie Elliot for farther researches after his

"There he goes," said Mareschal; "he is a fine, gallant young fellow, upon my soul; and yet I should like well

to have a thrust with him on the green turf. I was reckoned at college nearly his equal with the foils, and I

"In my opinion," answered Sir Frederick Langley, "we have done very ill in having suffered him, and those

men who are with him, to go off without taking away their arms; for the Whigs are very likely to draw to a

"For shame, Sir Frederick!" exclaimed Mareschal; "do you think that Ellieslaw could, in honour, consent to

any violence being offered to Earnscliff; when he entered his bounds only to bring back his daughter? or, if

he were to be of your opinion, do you think that I, and the rest of these gentlemen, would disgrace ourselves

by assisting in such a transaction? No, no, fair play and auld Scotland for ever! When the sword is drawn, I

will be as ready to use it as any man; but while it is in the sheath, let us behave like gentlemen and

Soon after this colloquy they reached the castle, when Ellieslaw, who had been arrived a few minutes before,

"How is Miss Vere? and have you learned the cause of her being carried off?" asked Mareschal hastily.

"She is retired to her apartment greatly fatigued; and I cannot expect much light upon her adventure till her

spirits are somewhat recruited," replied her father. "She and I were not the less obliged to you, Mareschal,

and to my other friends, for their kind enquiries. But I must suppress the father's feelings for a while to give

myself up to those of the patriot. You know this is the day fixed for our final decisiontime pressesour

friends are arriving, and I have opened house, not only for the gentry, but for the under spurleathers whom

we must necessarily employ. We have, therefore, little time to prepare to meet them.Look over these lists,

Marchie (an abbreviation by which MareschalWells was known among his friends). Do you, Sir Frederick,

read these letters from Lothian and the westall is ripe for the sickle, and we have but to summon out the

"Walk aside with me, my good friend," said Ellieslaw to the sombre baronet; "I have something for your

They walked into the house, leaving Ratcliffe and Mareschal standing together in the court.

"And so," said Ratcliffe, "the gentlemen of your political persuasion think the downfall of this government so

certain, that they disdain even to throw a decent disguise over the machinations of their party?"

"Faith, Mr. Ratcliffe," answered Mareschal, "the actions and sentiments YOUR friends may require to be

"And is it possible," continued Ratcliffe, "that you, who, notwithstanding pour thoughtlessness and heat of

temper (I beg pardon, Mr. Mareschal, I am a plain man)that you, who, notwithstanding these constitutional

defects, possess natural good sense and acquired information, should be infatuated enough to embroil

yourself in such desperate proceedings? How does your head feel when you are engaged in these dangerous

"Not quite so secure on my shoulders," answered Mareschal, "as if I were talking of hunting and hawking. I

am not of so indifferent a mould as my cousin Ellieslaw, who speaks treason as if it were a child's nursery

rhymes, and loses and recovers that sweet girl, his daughter, with a good deal less emotion on both occasions,

than would have affected me had I lost and recovered a greyhound puppy. My temper is not quite so

inflexible, nor my hate against government so inveterate, as to blind me to the full danger of the attempt."

"Why, I love this poor exiled king with all my heart; and my father was an old Killiecrankie man, and I long

to see some amends on the Unionist courtiers, that have bought and sold old Scotland, whose crown has been

"And for the sake of these shadows," said his monitor, "you are going to involve your country in war and

"I involve? No!but, trouble for trouble, I had rather it came tomorrow than a month hence. COME, I

know it will; and, as your country folks say, better soon than syneit will never find me youngerand as

for hanging, as Sir John Falstaff says, I can become a gallows as well as another. You know the end of the old

"Sae dauntonly, sae wantonly, Sae rantingly gaed he, He play'd a spring, and danced a round, Beneath the

"I am obliged to you, Mr. Ratcliffe; but I would not have you judge of our enterprise by my way of

"Perhaps so; but no lighter heart shall; and, to prevent it being made heavier by your remonstrances, I will bid

you adieu, Mr. Ratcliffe, till dinnertime, when you shall see that my apprehensions have not spoiled my

There had been great preparations made at Ellieslaw Castle for the entertainment on this important day, when

not only the gentlemen of note in the neighbourhood, attached to the Jacobite interest, were expected to

rendezvous, but also many subordinate malecontents, whom difficulty of circumstances, love of change,

resentment against England, or any of the numerous causes which inflamed men's passions at the time,

rendered apt to join in perilous enterprise. The men of rank and substance were not many in number; for

almost all the large proprietors stood aloof, and most of the smaller gentry and yeomanry were of the

Presbyterian persuasion, and therefore, however displeased with the Union, unwilling to engage in a Jacobite

conspiracy. But there were some gentlemen of property, who, either from early principle, from religious

motives, or sharing the ambitious views of Ellieslaw, had given countenance to his scheme; and there were,

also, some fiery young men, like Mareschal, desirous of signalizing themselves by engaging in a dangerous

enterprise, by which they hoped to vindicate the independence of their country. The other members of the

party were persons of inferior rank and desperate fortunes, who were now ready to rise in that part of the

country, as they did afterwards in the year 1715, under Forster and Derwentwater, when a troop, commanded

by a Border gentleman, named Douglas, consisted almost entirely of freebooters, among whom the notorious

Luckinabag, as he was called, held a distinguished command. We think it necessary to mention these

particulars, applicable solely to the province in which our scene lies; because, unquestionably, the Jacobite

party, in the other parts of the kingdom, consisted of much more formidable, as well as much more

One long table extended itself down the ample hall of Ellieslaw Castle, which was still left much in the state

in which it had been one hundred years before, stretching, that is, in gloomy length, along the whole side of

the castle, vaulted with ribbed arches of freestone, the groins of which sprung from projecting figures, that,

carved into all the wild forms which the fantastic imagination of a Gothic architect could devise, grinned,

frowned, and gnashed their tusks at the assembly below. Long narrow windows lighted the banqueting room

on both sides, filled up with stained glass, through which the sun emitted a dusky and discoloured light. A

banner, which tradition averred to have been taken from the English at the battle of Sark, waved over the

chair in which Ellieslaw presided, as if to inflame the courage of the guests, by reminding them of ancient

victories over their neighbours. He himself, a portly figure, dressed on this occasion with uncommon care,

and with features, which, though of a stern and sinister expression, might well be termed handsome, looked

the old feudal baron extremely well. Sir Frederick Langley was placed on his right hand, and Mr. Mareschal

of MareschalWells on his left. Some gentlemen of consideration, with their sons, brothers, and nephews,

were seated at the upper end of the table, and among these Mr. Ratcliffe had his place. Beneath the salt

cellar (a massive piece of plate which occupied the midst of the table) sate the SINE NOMINE TURBA, men

whose vanity was gratified by holding even this subordinate space at the social board, while the distinction

observed in ranking them was a salve to the pride of their superiors. That the lower house was not very select

must be admitted, since Willie of Westburnflat was one of the party. The unabashed audacity of this fellow,

in daring to present himself in the house of a gentleman, to whom he had just offered so flagrant an insult,

can only be accounted for by supposing him conscious that his share in carrying off Miss Vere was a secret,

Before this numerous and miscellaneous party was placed a dinner, consisting, not indeed of the delicacies of

the season, as the newspapers express it, but of viands, ample, solid, and sumptuous, under which the very

board groaned. But the mirth was not in proportion to the good cheer. The lower end of the table were, for

some time, chilled by constraint and respect on finding themselves members of so august an assembly; and

those who were placed around it had those feelings of awe with which P. P., clerk of the parish, describes

himself oppressed, when he first uplifted the psalm in presence of those persons of high worship, the wise

Mr. Justice Freeman, the good Lady Jones, and the great Sir Thomas Truby. This ceremonious frost,

however, soon gave way before the incentives to merriment, which were liberally supplied, and as liberally

consumed by the guests of the lower description. They became talkative, loud, and even clamorous in their

But it was not in the power of wine or brandy to elevate the spirits of those who held the higher places at the

banquet. They experienced the chilling revulsion of spirits which often takes place, when men are called upon

to take a desperate resolution, after having placed themselves in circumstances where it is alike difficult to

advance or to recede. The precipice looked deeper and more dangerous as they approached the brink, and

each waited with an inward emotion of awe, expecting which of his confederates would set the example by

plunging himself down. This inward sensation of fear and reluctance acted differently, according to the

various habits and characters of the company. One looked grave; another looked silly; a third gazed with

apprehension on the empty seats at the higher end of the table, designed for members of the conspiracy whose

prudence had prevailed over their political zeal, and who had absented themselves from their consultations at

this critical period; and some seemed to be reckoning up in their minds the comparative rank and prospects of

those who were present and absent. Sir Frederick Langley was reserved, moody, and discontented. Ellieslaw

himself made such forced efforts to raise the spirits of the company, as plainly marked the flagging of his

own. Ratcliffe watched the scene with the composure of a vigilant but uninterested spectator. Mareschal

alone, true to the thoughtless vivacity of his character, ate and drank, laughed and jested, and seemed even to

"What has damped our noble courage this morning?" he exclaimed. "We seem to be met at a funeral, where

the chief mourners must not speak above their breath, while the mutes and the saulies (looking to the lower

end of the table) are carousing below. Ellieslaw, when will you LIFT? [To LIFT, meaning to lift the coffin, is

the common expression for commencing a funeral.] where sleeps your spirit, man? and what has quelled the

"You speak like a madman," said Ellieslaw; "do you not see how many are absent?"

"And what of that?" said Mareschal. "Did you not know before, that onehalf of the world are better talkers

than doers? For my part, I am much encouraged by seeing at least twothirds of our friends true to the

rendezvous, though I suspect onehalf of these came to secure the dinner in case of the worst."

"There is no news from the coast which can amount to certainty of the King's arrival," said another of the

company, in that tone of subdued and tremulous whisper which implies a failure of resolution.

"Not a line from the Earl of D, nor a single gentleman from the southern side of the Border," said a third.

"Who is he that wishes for more men from England," exclaimed Mareschal, in a theatrical tone of affected

"Well, then," said his kinsman, "I'll bestow my wisdom upon you instead, such as it is. If we have gone

forward like fools, do not let us go back like cowards. We have done enough to draw upon us both the

suspicion and vengeance of the government; do not let us give up before we have done something to deserve

it. What, will no one speak? Then I'll leap the ditch the first." And, starting up, he filled a beerglass to the

brim with claret, and waving his hand, commanded all to follow his example, and to rise up from their seats.

All obeyedthe more qualified guests as if passively, the others with enthusiasm "Then, my friends, I give

you the pledge of the dayThe independence of Scotland, and the health of our lawful sovereign, King

James the Eighth, now landed in Lothian, and, as I trust and believe, in full possession of his ancient capital!"

All followed his example, and, amid the crash of glasses and the shouts of the company, pledged themselves

to stand or fall with the principles and political interest which their toast expressed.

"You have leaped the ditch with a witness," said Ellieslaw, apart to Mareschal; "but I believe it is all for the

best; at all events, we cannot now retreat from our undertaking. One man alone" (looking at Ratcliffe) "has

Then, rising up, he addressed the company in a style of inflammatory invective against the government and

its measures, but especially the Union; a treaty, by means of which, he affirmed, Scotland had been at once

cheated of her independence, her commerce, and her honour, and laid as a fettered slave at the foot of the

rival against whom, through such a length of ages, through so many dangers, and by so much blood, she had

honourably defended her rights. This was touching a theme which found a responsive chord in the bosom of

"Our commerce is destroyed," hollowed old John Rewcastle, a Jedburgh smuggler, from the lower end of the

"Our agriculture is ruined," said the Laird of Brokengirthflow, a territory which, since the days of Adam,

"Our religion is cut up, root and branch," said the pimplenosed pastor of the Episcopal meetinghouse at

"We shall shortly neither dare shoot a deer nor kiss a wench, without a certificate from the presbytery and

"Or make a brandy jeroboam in a frosty morning, without license from a commissioner of excise," said the

"Or ride over the fell in a moonless night," said Westburnflat, "without asking leave of young Earnscliff; or

some Englified justice of the peace: thae were gude days on the Border when there was neither peace nor

"Let us remember our wrongs at Darien and Glencoe," continued Ellieslaw, "and take arms for the protection

"Think upon genuine episcopal ordination, without which there can be no lawful clergy," said the divine.

"Think of the piracies committed on our EastIndian trade by Green and the English thieves," said William

Willieson, half owner and sole skipper of a brig that made four voyages annually between Cockpool and

"Remember your liberties," rejoined Mareschal, who seemed to take a mischievous delight in precipitating

the movements of the enthusiasm which he had excited, like a roguish boy, who, having lifted the sluice of a

milldam, enjoys the clatter of the wheels which he has put in motion, without thinking of the mischief he

may have occasioned. "Remember your liberties," he exclaimed; "confound cess, press, and presbytery, and

"Damn the gauger!" echoed old John Rewcastle; "I'll cleave him wi' my ain hand."

"And confound the countrykeeper and the constable!" reechoed Westburnflat; "I'll weize a brace of balls

"We are agreed, then," said Ellieslaw, when the shouts had somewhat subsided, "to bear this state of things

"Not literally so," said Mr. Ratcliffe; "for though I cannot hope to assuage the violent symptoms which seem

so suddenly to have seized upon the company, yet I beg to observe, that so far as the opinion of a single

member goes, I do not entirely coincide in the list of grievances which has been announced, and that I do

utterly protest against the frantic measures which you seem disposed to adopt for removing them. I can easily

suppose much of what has been spoken may have arisen out of the heat of the moment, or have been said

perhaps in jest. But there are some jests of a nature very apt to transpire; and you ought to remember,

"Stonewalls may have ears," returned Ellieslaw, eyeing him with a look of triumphant malignity, "but

domestic spies, Mr. Ratcliffe, will soon find themselves without any, if any such dares to continue his abode

in a family where his coming was an unauthorized intrusion, where his conduct has been that of a

presumptuous meddler, and from which his exit shall be that of a baffled knave, if he does not know how to

"Mr. Vere," returned Ratcliffe, with calm contempt, "I am fully aware, that as soon as my presence becomes

useless to you, which it must through the rash step you are about to adopt, it will immediately become unsafe

to myself, as it has always been hateful to you. But I have one protection, and it is a strong one; for you

would not willingly hear me detail before gentlemen, and men of honour, the singular circumstances in which

our connexion took its rise. As to the rest, I rejoice at its conclusion; and as I think that Mr. Mareschal and

some other gentlemen will guarantee the safety of my ears and of my throat (for which last I have more

reason to be apprehensive) during the course of the night, I shall not leave your castle till tomorrow

"Be it so, sir," replied Mr. Vere; "you are entirely safe from my resentment, because you are beneath it, and

not because I am afraid of your disclosing my family secrets, although, for your own sake, I warn you to

beware how you do so. Your agency and intermediation can be of little consequence to one who will win or

lose all, as lawful right or unjust usurpation shall succeed in the struggle that is about to ensue. Farewell, sir."

Ratcliffe arose, and cast upon him a look, which Vere seemed to sustain with difficulty, and, bowing to those

This conversation made an impression on many of the company, which Ellieslaw hastened to dispel, by

entering upon the business of the day. Their hasty deliberations went to organize an immediate insurrection.

Ellieslaw, Mareschal, and Sir Frederick Langley were chosen leaders, with powers to direct their farther

measures. A place of rendezvous was appointed, at which all agreed to meet early on the ensuing day, with

such followers and friends to the cause as each could collect around him. Several of the guests retired to

make the necessary preparations; and Ellieslaw made a formal apology to the others, who, with Westburnflat

and the old smuggler, continued to ply the bottle stanchly, for leaving the head of the table, as he must

necessarily hold a separate and sober conference with the coadjutors whom they had associated with him in

the command. The apology was the more readily accepted, as he prayed them, at the same time, to continue

to amuse themselves with such refreshments as the cellars of the castle afforded. Shouts of applause followed

their retreat; and the names of Vere, Langley, and, above all, of Mareschal, were thundered forth in chorus,

and bathed with copious bumpers repeatedly, during the remainder of the evening.

When the principal conspirators had retired into a separate apartment, they gazed on each other for a minute

with a sort of embarrassment, which, in Sir Frederick's dark features, amounted to an expression of

discontented sullenness. Mareschal was the first to break the pause, saying, with a loud burst of laughter,

"Yes; but I don't know how far you will thank me," answered Mareschal, "when I show you this letter which I

received just before we sat down. My servant told me it was delivered by a man he had never seen before,

HOND. SIR, Having obligations to your family, which shall be nameless, and learning that you are one of the

company of, adventurers doing business for the house of James and Company, late merchants in London,

now in Dunkirk, I think it right to send you this early and private information, that the vessels you expected

have been driven off the coast, without having been able to break bulk, or to land any part of their cargo; and

that the westcountry partners have resolved to withdraw their name from the firm, as it must prove a losing

concern. Having good hope you will avail yourself of this early information, to do what is needful for your

Sir Frederick's jaw dropped, and his countenance blackened, as the letter was read, and Ellieslaw

exclaimed,"Why, this affects the very mainspring of our enterprise. If the French fleet, with the king on

board, has been chased off by the English, as this dd scrawl seems to intimate, where are we?"

"Pardon me, and a truce to your illtimed mirth, Mr. Mareschal; this morning we were not committed

publicly, as we now stand committed by your own mad act, when you had a letter in your pocket apprizing

"Ay, ay, I expected you would say so. But, in the first place, my friend Nihil Nameless and his letter may be

all a flam; and, moreover, I would have you know that I am tired of a party that does nothing but form bold

resolutions overnight, and sleep them away with their wine before morning. The government are now

unprovided of men and ammunition; in a few weeks they will have enough of both: the country is now in a

flame against them; in a few weeks, betwixt the effects of selfinterest, of fear, and of lukewarm

indifference, which are already so visible, this first fervour will be as cold as Christmas. So, as I was

determined to go the vole, I have taken care you shall dip as deep as I; it signifies nothing plunging. You are

"You are mistaken with respect to one of us, Mr. Mareschal," said Sir Frederick Langley; and, applying

himself to the bell, he desired the person who entered to order his servants and horses instantly.

"You must not leave us, Sir Frederick," said Ellieslaw; it we have our musters to go over."

"I will go tonight, Mr. Vere," said Sir Frederick, "and write you my intentions in this matter when I am at

"Ay," said Mareschal, "and send them by a troop of horse from Carlisle to make us prisoners? Look ye, Sir

Frederick, I for one will neither be deserted nor betrayed; and if you leave Ellieslaw Castle tonight, it shall

"For shame! Mareschal," said Mr. Vere, "how can you so hastily misinterpret our friend's intentions? I am

sure Sir Frederick can only be jesting with us; for, were he not too honourable to dream of deserting the

cause, he cannot but remember the full proofs we have of his accession to it, and his eager activity in

advancing it. He cannot but be conscious, besides, that the first information will be readily received by

government, and that if the question be, which can first lodge intelligence of the affair, we can easily save a

"You should say you, and not we, when you talk of priorities in such a race of treachery; for my part, I won't

enter my horse for such a plate," said Mareschal; and added betwixit his teeth, "A pretty pair of fellows to

"I am not to be intimidated from doing what I think proper," said Sir Frederick Langley; "and my first step

shall be to leave Ellieslaw. I have no reason to keep faith with one" (looking at Vere) "who has kept none

"In what respect," said Ellieslaw, silencing, with a motion of his hand, his impetuous kinsman"how have I

"In the nearest and most tender pointyou have trifled with me concerning our proposed alliance, which you

well knew was the gage of our political undertaking. This carrying off and this bringing back of Miss

Vere,the cold reception I have met with from her, and the excuses with which you cover it, I believe to be

mere evasions, that you may yourself retain possession of the estates which are hers by right, and make me,

in the meanwhile, a tool in your desperate enterprise, by holding out hopes and expectations which you are

"I will listen to no protestations; I have been cheated with them too long," answered Sir Frederick.

"If you leave us," said Ellieslaw, "you cannot but know both your ruin and ours is certain; all depends on our

"Leave me to take care of myself," returned the knight; "but were what you say true, I would rather perish

"Can nothingno surety convince you of my sincerity?" said Ellieslaw, anxiously; "this morning I should

"You feel yourself compelled to be sincere?" retorted Sir Frederick. "If you would have me think so, there is

but one way to convince me of itlet your daughter bestow her hand on me this evening."

"So soon?impossible," answered Vere; "think of her late alarm of our present undertaking."

"I will listen to nothing but to her consent, plighted at the altar. You have a chapel in the castleDoctor

Hobbler is present among the companythis proof of your good faith tonight, and we are again joined in

heart and hand. If you refuse me when it is so much for your advantage to consent, how shall I trust you

tomorrow, when I shall stand committed in your undertaking, and unable to retract?"

"And I am to understand, that, if you can be made my soninlaw tonight, our friendship is renewed?" said

"Then," said Vere, "though what you ask is premature, indelicate, and unjust towards my character, yet, Sir

"With her own consent, I trust," said Mareschal; "for I promise you both, gentlemen, I will not stand tamely

"Another pest in this hotheaded fellow," muttered Ellieslaw; and then aloud, "With her own consent? For

what do you take me, Mareschal, that you should suppose your interference necessary to protect my daughter

against her father? Depend upon it, she has no repugnance to Sir Frederick Langley."

"Or rather to be called Lady Langley? faith, like enoughthere are many women might be of her mind; and I

beg your pardon, but these sudden demands and concessions alarmed me a little on her account."

"It is only the suddenness of the proposal that embarrasses me," said Ellieslaw; "but perhaps if she is found

"I will consider nothing, Mr. Vereyour daughter's hand to night, or I depart, were it at midnightthere is

"I embrace it," said Ellieslaw; "and I will leave you to talk upon our military preparations, while I go to

Mr. Vere, whom long practice of dissimulation had enabled to model his very gait and footsteps to aid the

purposes of deception, walked along the stone passage, and up the first flight of steps towards Miss Vere's

apartment, with the alert, firm, and steady pace of one who is bound, indeed, upon important business, but

who entertains no doubt he can terminate his affairs satisfactorily. But when out of hearing of the gentlemen

whom he had left, his step became so slow and irresolute, as to correspond with his doubts and his fears. At

length he paused in an antechamber to collect his ideas, and form his plan of argument, before approaching

"In what more hopeless and inextricable dilemma was ever an unfortunate man involved!" Such was the tenor

of his reflections."If we now fall to pieces by disunion, there can be little doubt that the government will

take my life as the prime agitator of the insurrection. Or, grant I could stoop to save myself by a hasty

submission, am I not, even in that case, utterly ruined? I have broken irreconcilably with Ratcliffe, and can

have nothing to expect from that quarter but insult and persecution. I must wander forth an impoverished and

dishonoured man, without even the means of sustaining life, far less wealth sufficient to counterbalance the

infamy which my countrymen, both those whom I desert and those whom I join, will attach to the name of

the political renegade. It is not to be thought of. And yet, what choice remains between this lot and the

ignominious scaffold? Nothing can save me but reconciliation with these men; and, to accomplish this, I have

promised to Langley that Isabella shall marry him ere midnight, and to Mareschal, that she shall do so

without compulsion. I have but one remedy betwixt me and ruinher consent to take a suitor whom she

dislikes, upon such short notice as would disgust her, even were he a favoured lover But I must trust to the

romantic generosity of her disposition; and let me paint the necessity of her obedience ever so strongly, I

Having finished this sad chain of reflections upon his perilous condition, he entered his daughter's apartment

with every nerve bent up to the support of the argument which he was about to sustain. Though a deceitful

and ambitious man, he was not so devoid of natural affection but that he was shocked at the part he was about

to act, in practising on the feelings of a dutiful and affectionate child; but the recollections, that, if he

succeeded, his daughter would only be trepanned into an advantageous match, and that, if he failed, he

He found Miss Vere seated by the window of her dressingroom, her head reclining on her hand, and either

sunk in slumber, or so deeply engaged in meditation, that she did not hear the noise he made at his entrance.

He approached with his features composed to a deep expression of sorrow and sympathy, and, sitting down

beside her, solicited her attention by quietly taking her hand, a motion which he did not fail to accompany

"My father!" said Isabella, with a sort of start, which expressed at least as much fear, as joy or affection.

"Yes, Isabella," said Vere, "your unhappy father, who comes now as a penitent to crave forgiveness of his

daughter for an injury done to her in the excess of his affection, and then to take leave of her for ever."

"Sir? Offence to me take leave for ever? What does all this mean?" said Miss Vere.

"Yes, Isabella, I am serious. But first let me ask you, have you no suspicion that I may have been privy to the

"You, sir?" answered Isabella, stammering between a consciousness that he had guessed her thoughts justly,

and the shame as well as fear which forbade her to acknowledge a suspicion so degrading and so unnatural.

"Yes!" he continued, "your hesitation confesses that you entertained such an opinion, and I have now the

painful task of acknowledging that your suspicions have done me no injustice. But listen to my motives. In an

evil hour I countenanced the addresses of Sir Frederick Langley, conceiving it impossible that you could have

any permanent objections to a match where the advantages were, in most respects, on your side. In a worse, I

entered with him into measures calculated to restore our banished monarch, and the independence of my

country. He has taken advantage of my unguarded confidence, and now has my life at his disposal."

"Yes, Isabella," continued her father, "the life of him who gave life to you. So soon as I foresaw the excesses

into which his headlong passion (for, to do him justice, I believe his unreasonable conduct arises from excess

of attachment to you) was likely to hurry him, I endeavoured, by finding a plausible pretext for your absence

for some weeks, to extricate myself from the dilemma in which I am placed. For this purpose I wished, in

case your objections to the match continued insurmountable, to have sent you privately for a few months to

the convent of your maternal aunt at Paris. By a series of mistakes you have been brought from the place of

secrecy and security which I had destined for your temporary abode. Fate has baffled my last chance of

escape, and I have only to give you my blessing, and send you from the castle with Mr. Ratcliffe, who now

"Good Heaven, sir! can this be possible?" exclaimed Isabella. "O, why was I freed from the restraint in which

"Think an instant, Isabella. Would you have had me prejudice in your opinion the friend I was most desirous

of serving, by communicating to you the injurious eagerness with which he pursued his object? Could I do so

honourably, having promised to assist his suit?But it is all over, I and Mareschal have made up our minds

"None, my child," answered Vere, gently, "unless one which you would not advise your father to adoptto

"O, no! no!" she answered, abhorrently yet hastily, as if to reject the temptation which the alternative

presented to her. "But is there no other hopethrough flightthrough mediation through

"It would be a fruitless degradation; he is determined on his course, and I am equally resolved to stand the

hazard of my fate. On one condition only he will turn aside from his purpose, and that condition my lips shall

"Name it, I conjure you, my dear father!" exclaimed Isabella. "What CAN he ask that we ought not to grant,

"That, Isabella," said Vere, solemnly, "you shall never know, until your father's head has rolled on the bloody

scaffold; then, indeed, you will learn there was one sacrifice by which he might have been saved."

"And why not speak it now?" said Isabella; "do you fear I would flinch from the sacrifice of fortune for your

preservation? or would you bequeath me the bitter legacy of lifelong remorse, so oft as I shall think that you

perished, while there remained one mode of preventing the dreadful misfortune that overhangs you?"

"Then, my child," said Vere, "since you press me to name what I would a thousand times rather leave in

silence, I must inform you that he will accept for ransom nothing but your hand in marriage, and that

"This evening, sir?" said the young lady, struck with horror at the proposal"and to such a man!A

man?a monster, who could wish to win the daughter by threatening the life of the father it is

"You say right, my child," answered her father, "it is indeed impossible; nor have I either the right or the wish

to exact such a sacrificeIt is the course of nature that the old should die and be forgot, and the young

"My father die, and his child can save him!but nonomy dear father, pardon me, it is impossible; you

only wish to guide me to your wishes. I know your object is what you think my happiness, and this dreadful

"My daughter," replied Ellieslaw, in a tone where offended authority seemed to struggle with parental

affection, "my child suspects me of inventing a false tale to work upon her feelings! Even this I must bear,

and even from this unworthy suspicion I must descend to vindicate myself. You know the stainless honour of

your cousin Mareschalmark what I shall write to him, and judge from his answer, if the danger in which

He sate down, wrote a few lines hastily, and handed them to Isabella, who, after repeated and painful efforts,

"Dear cousin," said the billet, "I find my daughter, as I expected, in despair at the untimely and premature

urgency of Sir Frederick Langley. She cannot even comprehend the peril in which we stand, or how much we

are in his power Use your influence with him, for Heaven's sake, to modify proposals, to the acceptance of

which I cannot, and will not, urge my child against all her own feelings, as well as those of delicacy and

In the agitation of the moment, when her swimming eyes and dizzy brain could hardly comprehend the sense

of what she looked upon, it is not surprising that Miss Vere should have omitted to remark that this letter

seemed to rest her scruples rather upon the form and time of the proposed union, than on a rooted dislike to

the suitor proposed to her. Mr. Vere rang the bell, and gave the letter to a servant to be delivered to Mr.

Mareschal, and, rising from his chair, continued to traverse the apartment in silence and in great agitation

until the answer was returned. He glanced it over, and wrung the hand of his daughter as he gave it to her.

"My dear kinsman, I have already urged the knight on the point you mention, and I find him as fixed as

Cheviot. I am truly sorry my fair cousin should be pressed to give up any of her maidenly rights. Sir

Frederick consents, however, to leave the castle with me the instant the ceremony is performed, and we will

raise our followers and begin the fray. Thus there is great hope the bridegroom may be knocked on the head

before he and the bride can meet again, so Bell has a fair chance to be Lady Langley A TRES BON

MARCHE. For the rest, I can only say, that if she can make up her mind to the alliance at allit is no time

for mere maiden ceremonymy pretty cousin must needs consent to marry in haste, or we shall all repent at

leisure, or rather have very little leisure to repent; which is all at present from him who rests your affectionate

"P.S.Tell Isabella that I would rather cut the knight's throat after all, and end the dilemma that way, than

When Isabella had read this letter, it dropped from her hand, and she would, at the same time, have fallen

"My God, my child will die!" exclaimed Vere, the feelings of nature overcoming, even in HIS breast, the

sentiments of selfish policy; "look up, Isabellalook up, my childcome what will, you shall not be the

sacrificeI will fall myself with the consciousness I leave you happyMy child may weep on my grave,

but she shall notnot in this instancereproach my memory." He called a servant."Go, bid Ratcliffe

During this interval, Miss Vere became deadly pale, clenched her hands, pressing the palms strongly together,

closed her eyes, and drew her lips with strong compression, as if the severe constraint which she put upon her

internal feelings extended even to her muscular organization. Then raising her head, and drawing in her

breath strongly ere she spoke, she said, with firmness, "Father, I consent to the marriage."

"You shall notyou shall not,my childmy dear childyou shall not embrace certain misery to free me

So exclaimed Ellieslaw; and, strange and inconsistent beings that we are! he expressed the real though

"No, my child, nonot now at leastwe will humble ourselves to obtain delay from him; and yet, Isabella,

could you overcome a dislike which has no real foundation, think, in other respects, what a

It seemed as if she had lost the power of saying anything else, or even of varying the phrase which, with such

"Heaven bless thee, my child!Heaven bless thee!And it WILL bless thee with riches, with pleasure,

"I will meet him," she replied, "I will meet himwhen I must, and where I must; but spare me now."

"Be it so, my dearest; you shall know no restraint that I can save you from. Do not think too hardly of Sir

"Forgive me, my childI goHeaven bless thee. At elevenif you call me not beforeat eleven I come

"When he left Isabella she dropped upon her knees"Heaven aid me to support the resolution I have

taken Heaven only canO, poor Earnscliff! who shall comfort him? and with what contempt will he

pronounce her name, who listened to him today and gave herself to another at night! But let him despise

mebetter so than that he should know the truthlet him despise me; if it will but lessen his grief, I should

She wept bitterly; attempting in vain, from time to time, to commence the prayer for which she had sunk on

her knees, but unable to calm her spirits sufficiently for the exercise of devotion. As she remained in this

The intruder on Miss Vere's sorrows was Ratcliffe. Ellieslaw had, in the agitation of his mind, forgotten to

countermand the order he had given to call him thither, so that he opened the door with the words, "You sent

for me, Mr. Vere." Then looking around"Miss Vere, alone! on the ground! and in tears!"

"I must not leave you," said Ratcliffe; "I have been repeatedly requesting admittance to take my leave of you,

and have been refused, until your father himself sent for me. Blame me not, if I am bold and intrusive; I have

"I cannot listen to youI cannot speak to you, Mr. Ratcliffe; take my best wishes, and for God's sake leave

"Tell me only," said Ratcliffe, "is it true that this monstrous match is to go forward, and this very night? I

heard the servants proclaim it as I was on the great staircaseI heard the directions given to clear out the

"Spare me, Mr. Ratcliffe," replied the luckless bride; "and from the state in which you see me, judge of the

"Married? to Sir Frederick Langley? and this night? It must not cannotshall not be."

"Ah! I understand," answered Ratcliffe; "and you have sacrificed yourself to save him whoBut let the

virtue of the child atone for the faults of the father it is no time to rake them up.What CAN be done? Time

pressesI know but one remedywith fourand twenty hours I might find manyMiss Vere, you must

implore the protection of the only human being who has it in his power to control the course of events which

"Start not when I name him," said Ratcliffe, coming near her, and speaking in a low but distinct voice. "It is

"You are mad, Mr. Ratcliffe, or you mean to insult my misery by an illtimed jest!"

"I am as much in my senses, young lady," answered her adviser, "as you are; and I am no idle jester, far less

with misery, least of all with your misery. I swear to you that this being (who is other far than what he seems)

"Yes! even that," said Ratcliffe, "if you plead his cause with himyet how to obtain admittance to the

"Fear not that," said Miss Vere, suddenly recollecting the incident of the rose; "I remember he desired me to

call upon him for aid in my extremity, and gave me this flower as a token. Ere it faded away entirely, I would

need, he said, his assistance: is it possible his words can have been aught but the ravings of insanity?"

"Doubt it not fear it notbut above all," said Ratcliffe, "let us lose no timeare you at liberty, and

"Leave the castle instantly," said Ratcliffe, "and throw yourself at the feet of this extraordinary man, who in

circumstances that seem to argue the extremity of the most contemptible poverty, possesses yet an almost

absolute influence over your fate. Guests and servants are deep in their carousethe leaders sitting in

conclave on their treasonable schemesmy horse stands ready in the stableI will saddle one for you, and

meet you at the little gardengateO, let no doubt of my prudence or fidelity prevent your taking the only

step in your power to escape the dreadful fate which must attend the wife of Sir Frederick Langley!"

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Miss Vere, "you have always been esteemed a man of honour and probity, and a

drowning wretch will always catch at the feeblest twig,I will trust youI will follow your adviceI will

She bolted the outerdoor of her apartment as soon as Mr. Ratcliffe left her, and descended to the garden by a

separate stair of communication which opened to her dressingroom. On the way she felt inclined to retract

the consent she had so hastily given to a plan so hopeless and extravagant. But as she passed in her descent a

private door which entered into the chapel from the backstair, she heard the voice of the femaleservants as

She hurried to the garden. Mr. Ratcliffe was true to his appointmentthe horses stood saddled at the

gardengate, and in a few minutes they were advancing rapidly towards the hut of the Solitary.

While the ground was favourable, the speed of their journey was such as to prevent much communication;

but when a steep ascent compelled them to slacken their pace, a new cause of apprehension occurred to Miss

"Mr. Ratcliffe," she said, pulling up her horse's bridle, "let us prosecute no farther a journey, which nothing

but the extreme agitation of my mind can vindicate my having undertakenI am well aware that this man

passes among the vulgar as being possessed of supernatural powers, and carrying on an intercourse with

beings of another world; but I would have you aware I am neither to be imposed on by such follies, nor, were

I to believe in their existence, durst I, with my feelings of religion, apply to this being in my distress."

"I should have thought, Miss Vere," replied Ratcliffe, "my character and habits of thinking were so well

known to you, that you might have held me exculpated from crediting in such absurdity."

"But in what other mode," said Isabella, "can a being, so miserable himself in appearance, possess the power

"Miss Vere." said Ratcliffe, after a momentary pause, "I am bound by a solemn oath of secrecyYou must,

without farther explanation, be satisfied with my pledged assurance, that he does possess the power, if you

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Miss Vere, "you may yourself be mistaken; you ask an unlimited degree of confidence

"Recollect, Miss Vere," he replied, "that when, in your humanity, you asked me to interfere with your father

in favour of Haswell and his ruined familywhen you requested me to prevail on him to do a thing most

abhorrent to his natureto forgive an injury and remit a penaltyI stipulated that you should ask me no

questions concerning the sources of my influenceYou found no reason to distrust me then, do not distrust

"But the extraordinary mode of life of this man," said Miss Vere; "his seclusionhis figurethe deepness

of misanthropy which he is said to express in his languageMr. Ratcliffe, what can I think of him if he

"This man, young lady, was bred a Catholic, a sect which affords a thousand instances of those who have

retired from power and affluence to voluntary privations more strict even than his."

"No," replied Ratcliffe; "disgust with the world has operated his retreat from it without assuming the veil of

superstition. Thus far I may tell youhe was born to great wealth, which his parents designed should

become greater by his union with a kinswoman, whom for that purpose they bred up in their own house. You

have seen his figure; judge what the young lady must have thought of the lot to which she was

destinedYet, habituated to his appearance, she showed no reluctance, and the friends ofof the person

whom I speak of, doubted not that the excess of his attachment, the various acquisitions of his mind, his

many and amiable qualities, had overcome the natural horror which his destined bride must have entertained

"You shall hear. He, at least, was fully aware of his own deficiency; the sense of it haunted him like a

phantom. 'I am,' was his own expression to me,I mean to a man whom he trusted, 'I am, in spite of what

you would say, a poor miserable outcast, fitter to have been smothered in the cradle than to have been

brought up to scare the world in which I crawl.' The person whom he addressed in vain endeavoured to

impress him with the indifference to external form which is the natural result of philosophy, or entreat him to

recall the superiority of mental talents to the more attractive attributes that are merely personal. 'I hear you,'

he would reply; 'but you speak the voice of coldblooded stoicism, or, at least, of friendly partiality. But look

at every book which we have read, those excepted of that abstract philosophy which feels no responsive voice

in our natural feelings. Is not personal form, such as at least can be tolerated without horror and disgust,

always represented as essential to our ideas of a friend, far more a lover? Is not such a misshapen monster as

I am, excluded, by the very fiat of Nature, from her fairest enjoyments? What but my wealth prevents

allperhaps even Letitia, or youfrom shunning me as something foreign to your nature, and more odious,

by bearing that distorted resemblance to humanity which we observe in the animal tribes that are more hateful

"No," replied her conductor, "unless a morbid and excessive sensibility on such a subject can be termed

insanity. "Yet I will not deny that this governing feeling and apprehension carried the person who entertained

it, to lengths which indicated a deranged imagination. He appeared to think that it was necessary for him, by

exuberant, and not always wellchosen instances of liberality, and even profusion, to unite himself to the

human race, from which he conceived himself naturally dissevered. The benefits which he bestowed, from a

disposition naturally philanthropical in an uncommon degree, were exaggerated by the influence of the

goading reflection, that more was necessary from him than from others,lavishing his treasures as if to bribe

mankind to receive him into their class. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the bounty which flowed from a

source so capricious was often abused, and his confidence frequently betrayed. These disappointments, which

occur to all, more or less, and most to such as confer benefits without just discrimination, his diseased fancy

set down to the hatred and contempt excited by his personal deformity. But I fatigue you, Miss Vere?"

"No, by no means; II could not prevent my attention from wandering an instant; pray proceed."

"He became at length," continued Ratcliffe, "the most ingenious selftormentor of whom I have ever heard;

the scoff of the rabble, and the sneer of the yet more brutal vulgar of his own rank, was to him agony and

breaking on the wheel. He regarded the laugh of the common people whom he passed on the street, and the

suppressed titter, or yet more offensive terror, of the young girls to whom he was introduced in company, as

proofs of the true sense which the world entertained of him, as a prodigy unfit to be received among them on

the usual terms of society, and as vindicating the wisdom of his purpose in withdrawing himself from among

them. On the faith and sincerity of two persons alone, he seemed to rely implicitlyon that of his betrothed

bride, and of a friend eminently gifted in personal accomplishments, who seemed, and indeed probably was,

sincerely attached to him. He ought to have been so at least, for he was literally loaded with benefits by him

whom you are now about to see. The parents of the subject of my story died within a short space of each

other. Their death postponed the marriage, for which the day had been fixed. The lady did not seem greatly to

mourn this delay, perhaps that was not to have been expected; but she intimated no change of intention,

when, after a decent interval, a second day was named for their union. The friend of whom I spoke was then a

constant resident at the Hall. In an evil hour, at the earnest request and entreaty of this friend, they joined a

general party, where men of different political opinions were mingled, and where they drank deep. A quarrel

ensued; the friend of the Recluse drew his sword with others, and was thrown down and disarmed by a more

powerful antagonist. They fell in the struggle at the feet of the Recluse, who, maimed and truncated as his

form appears, possesses, nevertheless, great strength, as well as violent passions. He caught up a sword,

pierced the heart of his friend's antagonist, was tried, and his life, with difficulty, redeemed from justice at the

expense of a year's close imprisonment, the punishment of manslaughter. The incident affected him most

deeply, the more that the deceased was a man of excellent character, and had sustained gross insult and injury

ere he drew his sword. I think, from that moment, I observedI beg pardonThe fits of morbid sensibility

which had tormented this unfortunate gentleman, were rendered henceforth more acute by remorse, which he,

of all men, was least capable of having incurred, or of sustaining when it became his unhappy lot. His

paroxysms of agony could not be concealed from the lady to whom he was betrothed; and it must be

confessed they were of an alarming and fearful nature. He comforted himself, that, at the expiry of his

imprisonment, he could form with his wife and friend a society, encircled by which he might dispense with

more extensive communication with the world. He was deceived; before that term elapsed, his friend and his

betrothed bride were man and wife. The effects of a shock so dreadful on an ardent temperament, a

disposition already soured by bitter remorse, and loosened by the indulgence of a gloomy imagination from

the rest of mankind, I cannot describe to you; it was as if the last cable at which the vessel rode had suddenly

parted, and left her abandoned to all the wild fury of the tempest. He was placed under medical restraint. As a

temporary measure this might have been justifiable; but his hardhearted friend, who, in consequence of his

marriage, was now his nearest ally, prolonged his confinement, in order to enjoy the management of his

immense estates. There was one who owed his all to the sufferer, an humble friend, but grateful and faithful.

By unceasing exertion, and repeated invocation of justice, he at length succeeded in obtaining his patron's

freedom, and reinstatement in the management of his own property, to which was soon added that of his

intended bride, who having died without male issue, her estates reverted to him, as heir of entail. But freedom

and wealth were unable to restore the equipoise of his mind; to the former his grief made him

indifferentthe latter only served him as far as it afforded him the means of indulging his strange and

wayward fancy. He had renounced the Catholic religion, but perhaps some of its doctrines continued to

influence a mind, over which remorse and misanthropy now assumed, in appearance, an unbounded

authority. His life has since been that alternately of a pilgrim and a hermit, suffering the most severe

privations, not indeed in ascetic devotion, but in abhorrence of mankind. Yet no man's words and actions

have been at such a wide difference, nor has any hypocritical wretch ever been more ingenious in assigning

good motives for his vile actions, than this unfortunate in reconciling to his abstract principles of

misanthropy, a conduct which flows from his natural generosity and kindness of feeling."

"By no means," replied Ratcliffe. "That the imagination of this gentleman is disordered, I will not pretend to

dispute; I have already told you that it has sometimes broken out into paroxysms approaching to real mental

alienation. But it is of his common state of mind that I speak; it is irregular, but not deranged; the shades are

as gradual as those that divide the light of noonday from midnight. The courtier who ruins his fortune for the

attainment of a title which can do him no good, or power of which he can make no suitable or creditable use,

the miser who hoards his useless wealth, and the prodigal who squanders it, are all marked with a certain

shade of insanity. To criminals who are guilty of enormities, when the temptation, to a sober mind, bears no

proportion to the horror of the act, or the probability of detection and punishment, the same observation

applies; and every violent passion, as well as anger, may be termed a short madness."

"This may be all good philosophy, Mr. Ratcliffe," answered Miss Vere; "but, excuse me, it by no means

emboldens me to visit, at this late hour, a person whose extravagance of imagination you yourself can only

"Rather, then," said Ratcliffe, "receive my solemn assurances, that you do not incur the slightest danger. But

what I have been hitherto afraid to mention for fear of alarming you is, that now when we are within sight of

his retreat, for I can discover it through the twilight, I must go no farther with you; you must proceed alone."

"You will not, then, stir from this place," said Miss Vere "yet the distance is so great, you could not hear me

"Fear nothing," said her guide; "or observe, at least, the utmost caution in stifling every expression of

timidity. Remember that his predominant and most harassing apprehension arises from a consciousness of the

hideousness of his appearance. Your path lies straight beside yon halffallen willow; keep the left side of it;

the marsh lies on the right. Farewell for a time. Remember the evil you are threatened with, and let it

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Isabella, "farewell; if you have deceived one so unfortunate as myself, you have for ever

"On my lifeon my soul," continued Ratcliffe, raising his voice as the distance between them increased,

The sounds of Ratcliffe's voice had died on Isabella's ear; but as she frequently looked back, it was some

encouragement to her to discern his form now darkening in the gloom. Ere, however, she went much farther,

she lost the object in the increasing shade. The last glimmer of the twilight placed her before the hut of the

Solitary. She twice extended her hand to the door, and twice she withdrew it; and when she did at length

make the effort, the knock did not equal in violence the throb of her own bosom. Her next effort was louder;

her third was reiterated, for the fear of not obtaining the protection from which Ratcliffe promised so much,

began to overpower the terrors of his presence from whom she was to request it. At length, as she still

received no answer, she repeatedly called upon the Dwarf by his assumed name, and requested him to answer

"What miserable being is reduced," said the appalling voice of the Solitary, "to seek refuge here? Go hence;

when the heath fowl need shelter, they seek it not in the nest of the night raven."

"I come to you, father," said Isabella, "in my hour of adversity, even as you yourself commanded, when you

"Ha!" said the Solitary, "then thou art Isabella Vere? Give me a token that thou art she."

"I have brought you back the rose which you gave me; it has not had time to fade ere the hard fate you

"And if thou hast thus redeemed thy pledge," said the Dwarf, "I will not forfeit mine. The heart and the door

that are shut against every other earthly being, shall be open to thee and to thy sorrows."

She heard him move in his hut, and presently afterwards strike a light. One by one, bolt and bar were then

withdrawn, the heart of Isabella throbbing higher as these obstacles to their meeting were successively

removed. The door opened, and the Solitary stood before her, his uncouth form and features illuminated by

She entered, and observed, with a precaution which increased her trepidation, that the Recluse's first act, after

setting the lamp upon the table, was to replace the numerous bolts which secured the door of his hut. She

shrunk as she heard the noise which accompanied this ominous operation, yet remembered Ratcliffe's

caution, and endeavoured to suppress all appearance of apprehension. The light of the lamp was weak and

uncertain; but the Solitary, without taking immediate notice of Isabella, otherwise than by motioning her to

sit down on a small settle beside the fireplace, made haste to kindle some dry furze, which presently cast a

blaze through the cottage. Wooden shelves, which bore a few books, some bundles of dried herbs, and one or

two wooden cups and platters, were on one side of the fire; on the other were placed some ordinary tools of

fieldlabour, mingled with those used by mechanics. Where the bed should have been, there was a wooden

frame, strewed with withered moss and rushes, the couch of the ascetic. The whole space of the cottage did

not exceed ten feet by six within the walls; and its only furniture, besides what we have mentioned, was a

Within these narrow precincts Isabella now found herself enclosed with a being, whose history had nothing to

reassure her, and the fearful conformation of whose hideous countenance inspired an almost superstitious

terror. He occupied the seat opposite to her, and dropping his huge and shaggy eyebrows over his piercing

black eyes, gazed at her in silence, as if agitated by a variety of contending feelings. On the other side sate

Isabella, pale as death, her long hair uncurled by the evening damps, and falling over her shoulders and

breast, as the wet streamers droop from the mast when the storm has passed away, and left the vessel stranded

on the beach. The Dwarf first broke the silence with the sudden, abrupt, and alarming question,"Woman,

"And how should I possess that power?" continued the Dwarf, with a bitter sneer; "Is mine the form of a

redresser of wrongs? Is this the castle in which one powerful enough to be sued to by a fair suppliant is likely

to hold his residence? I but mocked thee, girl, when I said I would relieve thee."

"No!" said the Dwarf, rising and interposing between her and the door, and motioning to her sternly to

resume her seat"No! you leave me not in this way; we must have farther conference. Why should one

being desire aid of another? Why should not each be sufficient to itself? Look round youI, the most

despised and most decrepit on Nature's common, have required sympathy and help from no one. These stones

are of my own piling; these utensils I framed with my own hands; and with this"and he laid his hand with a

fierce smile on the long dagger which he always wore beneath his garment, and unsheathed it so far that the

blade glimmered clear in the firelight"with this," he pursued, as he thrust the weapon back into the

scabbard, "I can, if necessary, defend the vital spark enclosed in this poor trunk, against the fairest and

It was with difficulty Isabella refrained from screaming out aloud; but she DID refrain.

"This," continued the Recluse, "is the life of nature, solitary, selfsufficing, and independent. The wolf calls

not the wolf to aid him in forming his den; and the vulture invites not another to assist her in striking down

"And when they are unable to procure themselves support," said Isabella, judiciously thinking that he would

be most accessible to argument couched in his own metaphorical style, "what then is to befall them?"

"It is the lot of the wild tribes of nature," said Isabella, "but chiefly of those who are destined to support

themselves by rapine, which brooks no partner; but it is not the law of nature in general; even the lower

orders have confederacies for mutual defence. But mankindthe race would perish did they cease to aid

each other.From the time that the mother binds the child's head, till the moment that some kind assistant

wipes the death damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that

need aid, have right to ask it of their fellowmortals; no one who has the power of granting can refuse it

"And in this simple hope, poor maiden," said the Solitary, "thou hast come into the desert, to seek one whose

wish it were that the league thou hast spoken of were broken for ever, and that, in very truth, the whole race

"Hast thou not heard it said in thy mortal world, that I have leagued myself with other powers, deformed to

the eye and malevolent to the human race as myself? Hast thou not heard thisAnd dost thou seek my cell at

"The Being I worship supports me against such idle fears," said Isabella; but the increasing agitation of her

"Ho! ho!" said the Dwarf, "thou vauntest thyself a philosopher? Yet, shouldst thou not have thought of the

danger of intrusting thyself, young and beautiful, in the power of one so spited against humanity, as to place

Isabella, much alarmed, continued to answer with firmness, "Whatever injuries you may have sustained in the

world, you are incapable of revenging them on one who never wronged you, nor,wilfully, any other."

"Ay, but, maiden," he continued, his dark eyes flashing with an expression of malignity which communicated

itself to his wild and distorted features, "revenge is the hungry wolf, which asks only to tear flesh and lap

"Man!" said Isabella, rising, and expressing herself with much dignity, "I fear not the horrible ideas with

which you would impress me. I cast them from me with disdain. Be you mortal or fiend, you would not offer

injury to one who sought you as a suppliant in her utmost need. You would notyou durst not."

"Thou say'st truly, maiden," rejoined the Solitary; "I dare not I would not. Begone to thy dwelling. Fear

nothing with which they threaten thee. Thou hast asked my protectionthou shalt find it effectual."

"But, father, this very night I have consented to wed the man that I abhor, or I must put the seal to my father's

"And twilight," said the Dwarf, "has already passed away. But fear nothing, there is ample time to protect

"Thy father," replied the Dwarf, "has been, and is, my most bitter enemy. But fear not; thy virtue shall save

him. And now, begone; were I to keep thee longer by me, I might again fall into the stupid dreams concerning

human worth from which I have been so fearfully awakened. But fear nothingat the very foot of the altar I

He led her to the door of the hut, which he opened for her departure. She remounted her horse, which had

been feeding in the outer enclosure, and pressed him forward by the light of the moon, which was now rising,

"I have obtained promises from him to whom you sent me; but how can he possibly accomplish them?"

"Hark!" said Ratcliffe, "he calls meMiss Vere, return home, and leave unbolted the posterndoor of the

"I come, I come," said Ratcliffe; and setting spurs to his horse, rode over the heath in the direction of the

Recluse's hut. Miss Vere returned to the castle, the mettle of the animal on which she rode, and her own

She obeyed Ratcliffe's directions, though without well apprehending their purpose, and leaving her horse at

large in a paddock near the garden, hurried to her own apartment, which she reached without observation.

She now unbolted her door, and rang her bell for lights. Her father appeared along with the servant who

"He had been twice," he said, "listening at her door during the two hours that had elapsed since he left her,

"And now, my dear father," she said, "permit me to claim the promise you so kindly gave; let the last

moments of freedom which I am to enjoy be mine without interruption; and protract to the last moment the

"I will," said her father; "nor shall you be again interrupted. But this disordered dressthis dishevelled

hairdo not let me find you thus when I call on you again; the sacrifice, to be beneficial, must be voluntary."

"Must it be so?" she replied; "then fear not, my father! the victim shall be adorned."

The chapel in the castle of Ellieslaw, destined to be the scene of this illomened union, was a building of

much older date than the castle itself, though that claimed considerable antiquity. Before the wars between

England and Scotland had become so common and of such long duration, that the buildings along both sides

of the Border were chiefly dedicated to warlike purposes, there had been a small settlement of monks at

Ellieslaw, a dependency, it is believed by antiquaries, on the rich Abbey of Jedburgh. Their possessions had

long passed away under the changes introduced by war and mutual ravage. A feudal castle had arisen on the

The edifice, in its round arches and massive pillars, the simplicity of which referred their date to what has

been called the Saxon architecture, presented at all times a dark and sombre appearance, and had been

frequently used as the cemetery of the family of the feudal lords, as well as formerly of the monastic brethren.

But it looked doubly gloomy by the effect of the few and smoky torches which were used to enlighten it on

the present occasion, and which, spreading a glare of yellow light in their immediate vicinity, were

surrounded beyond by a red and purple halo reflected from their own smoke, and beyond that again by a zone

of darkness which magnified the extent of the chapel, while it rendered it impossible for the eye to ascertain

its limits. Some injudicious ornaments, adopted in haste for the occasion, rather added to the dreariness of the

scene. Old fragments of tapestry, torn from the walls of other apartments, had been hastily and partially

disposed around those of the chapel, and mingled inconsistently with scutcheons and funeral emblems of the

dead, which they elsewhere exhibited. On each side of the stone altar was a monument, the appearance of

which formed an equally strange contrast. On the one was the figure, in stone, of some grim hermit, or monk,

who had died in the odour of sanctity; he was represented as recumbent, in his cowl and scapulaire, with his

face turned upward as in the act of devotion, and his hands folded, from which his string of beads was

dependent. On the other side was a tomb, in the Italian taste, composed of the most beautiful statuary marble,

and accounted a model of modern art. It was erected to the memory of Isabella's mother, the late Mrs. Vere of

Ellieslaw, who was represented as in a dying posture, while a weeping cherub, with eyes averted, seemed in

the act of extinguishing a dying lamp as emblematic of her speedy dissolution. It was, indeed, a masterpiece

of art, but misplaced in the rude vault to which it had been consigned. Many were surprised, and even

scandalized, that Ellieslaw, not remarkable for attention to his lady while alive, should erect after her death

such a costly mausoleum in affected sorrow; others cleared him from the imputation of hypocrisy, and

averred that the monument had been constructed under the direction and at the sole expense of Mr. Ratcliffe.

Before these monuments the wedding guests were assembled. They were few in number; for many had left

the castle to prepare for the ensuing political explosion, and Ellieslaw was, in the circumstances of the case,

far from being desirous to extend invitations farther than to those near relations whose presence the custom of

the country rendered indispensable. Next to the altar stood Sir Frederick Langley, dark, moody, and

thoughtful, even beyond his wont, and near him, Mareschal, who was to play the part of bridesman, as it was

called. The thoughtless humour of this young gentleman, on which he never deigned to place the least

"The bride is not yet come out of her chamber," he whispered to Sir Frederick; "I trust that we must not have

recourse to the violent expedients of the Romans which I read of at College. It would be hard upon my pretty

cousin to be run away with twice in two days, though I know none better worth such a violent compliment."

Sir Frederick attempted to turn a deaf ear to this discourse, humming a tune, and looking another may, but

"This delay is hard upon Dr. Hobbler, who was disturbed to accelerate preparations for this joyful event when

he had successfully extracted the cork of his third bottle. I hope you will keep him free of the censure of his

superiors, for I take it this is beyond canonical hours.But here come Ellieslaw and my pretty

cousinprettier than ever, I think, were it not she seems so faint and so deadly paleHark ye, Sir Knight, if

she says not YES with right goodwill, it shall be no wedding, for all that has come and gone yet."

"No wedding, sir?" returned Sir Frederick, in a loud whisper, the tone of which indicated that his angry

Sir Frederick Langley took his hand, and as he wrung it hard, said in a lower whisper, "Mareschal, you shall

"That I will readily do," said Mareschal, "for never word escaped my lips that my hand was not ready to

guarantee. So, speak up, my pretty cousin, and tell me if it be your free will and unbiassed resolution to

accept of this gallant knight for your lord and husband; for if you have the tenth part of a scruple upon the

"Are you mad, Mr. Mareschal?" said Ellieslaw, who, having been this young man's guardian during his

minority, often employed a tone of authority to him. "Do you suppose I would drag my daughter to the foot

"Tut, Ellieslaw," retorted the young gentleman, "never tell me of the contrary; her eyes are full of tears, and

her cheeks are whiter than her white dress. I must insist, in the name of common humanity, that the ceremony

"She shall tell you herself, thou incorrigible intermeddler in what concerns thee not, that it is her wish the

"It is," said Isabella, half fainting"since there is no help, either in God or man."

The first word alone was distinctly audible. Mareschal shrugged up his shoulders and stepped back. Ellieslaw

led, or rather supported, his daughter to the altar. Sir Frederick moved forward and placed himself by her

side. The clergyman opened his prayerbook, and looked to Mr. Vere for the signal to commence the service.

But a voice, as if issuing from the tomb of his deceased wife, called, in such loud and harsh accents as

All were mute and motionless, till a distant rustle, and the clash of swords, or something resembling it, was

"What new device is this?" said Sir Frederick, fiercely, eyeing Ellieslaw and Mareschal with a glance of

"It can be but the frolic of some intemperate guest," said Ellieslaw, though greatly confounded; "we must

make large allowances for the excess of this evening's festivity. Proceed with the service."

Before the clergyman could obey, the same prohibition which they had before heard, was repeated from the

same spot. The female attendants screamed, and fled from the chapel; the gentlemen laid their hands on their

swords. Ere the first moment of surprise had passed by, the Dwarf stepped from behind the monument, and

placed himself full in front of Mr. Vere. The effect of so strange and hideous an apparition in such a place

and in such circumstances, appalled all present, but seemed to annihilate the Laird of Ellieslaw, who,

dropping his daughter's arm, staggered against the nearest pillar, and, clasping it with his hands as if for

"Who is this fellow?" said Sir Frederick; "and what does he mean by this intrusion?"

"It is one who comes to tell you," said the Dwarf, with the peculiar acrimony which usually marked his

manner, "that, in marrying that young lady, you wed neither the heiress of Ellieslaw, nor of Mauley Hall, nor

of Polverton, nor of one furrow of land, unless she marries with MY consent; and to thee that consent shall

never be given. Downdown on thy knees, and thank Heaven that thou art prevented from wedding qualities

with which thou hast no concernportionless truth, virtue, and innocencethou, base ingrate," he

continued, addressing himself to Ellieslaw, "what is thy wretched subterfuge now? Thou, who wouldst sell

thy daughter to relieve thee from danger, as in famine thou wouldst have slain and devoured her to preserve

thy own vile life!Ay, hide thy face with thy hands; well mayst thou blush to look on him whose body thou

didst consign to chains, his hand to guilt, and his soul to misery. Saved once more by the virtue of her who

calls thee father, go hence, and may the pardon and benefits I confer on thee prove literal coals of fire, till thy

"Follow him, Hubert Ratcliffe," said the Dwarf, "and inform him of his destiny. He will rejoicefor to

"I understand nothing of all this," said Sir Frederick Langley; "but we are here a body of gentlemen in arms

and authority for King James; and whether you really, sir, be that Sir Edward Mauley, who has been so long

supposed dead in confinement, or whether you be an impostor assuming his name and title, we will use the

freedom of detaining you, till your appearance here, at this moment, is better accounted for; we will have no

But the domestics shrunk back in doubt and alarm. Sir Frederick himself stepped forward towards the

Recluse, as if to lay hands on his person, when his progress was suddenly stopped by the glittering point of a

"I'll gar daylight shine through ye, if ye offer to steer him!" said the stout Borderer; "stand back, or I'll strike

ye through! Naebody shall lay a finger on Elshie; he's a canny neighbourly man, aye ready to make a friend

help; and, though ye may think him a lamiter, yet, grippie for grippie, friend, I'll wad a wether he'll make the

bluid spin frae under your nails. He's a teugh carle Elshie! he grips like a smith's vice."

"What has brought you here, Elliot?" said Mareschal; "who called on you for interference?"

"Troth, MareschalWells," answered Hobbie, "I am just come here, wi' twenty or thretty mair o' us, in my ain

name and the King's or Queen's, ca' they her? and Canny Elshie's into the bargain, to keep the peace, and

pay back some ill usage Ellieslaw has gien me. A bonny breakfast the loons gae me the ither morning, and

him at the bottom on't; and trow ye I wasna ready to supper him up?Ye needna lay your hands on your

swords, gentlemen, the house is ours wi' little din; for the doors were open, and there had been ower muckle

punch amang your folk; we took their swords and pistols as easily as ye wad shiel peacods."

"By Heaven! it is true, Sir Frederick; the house is filled with armed men, and our drunken beasts are all

"Binna rashbinna rash," exclaimed Hobbie; "hear me a bit, hear me a bit. We mean ye nae harm; but, as ye

are in arms for King James, as ye ca' him, and the prelates, we thought it right to keep up the auld neighbour

war, and stand up for the t'other ane and the Kirk; but we'll no hurt a hair o' your heads, if ye like to gang

hame quietly. And it will be your best way, for there's sure news come frae Loudoun, that him they ca' Bang,

or Byng, or what is't, has bang'd the French ships and the new king aff the coast however; sae ye had best

Ratcliffe, who at this moment entered, confirmed these accounts so unfavourable to the Jacobite interest. Sir

Frederick, almost instantly, and without taking leave of any one, left the castle, with such of his attendants as

"Why, faith," answered he, smiling, "I hardly know; my spirit is too great, and my fortune too small, for me

to follow the example of the doughty bridegroom. It is not in my nature, and it is hardly worth my while."

"Well, then, disperse your men, and remain quiet, and this will be overlooked, as there has been no overt act."

"Hout, ay," said Elliot, "just let byganes be byganes, and a' friends again; deil ane I bear malice at but

Westburnflat, and I hae gien him baith a het skin and a cauld ane. I hadna changed three blows of the

broadsword wi' him before he lap the window into the castlemoat, and swattered through it like a

wildduck. He's a clever fallow, indeed! maun kilt awa wi' ae bonny lass in the morning, and another at

night, less wadna serve him! but if he disna kilt himsell out o' the country, I'se kilt him wi' a tow, for the

During the general confusion, Isabella had thrown herself at the feet of her kinsman, Sir Edward Mauley, for

so we must now call the Solitary, to express at once her gratitude, and to beseech forgiveness for her father.

The eyes of all began to be fixed on them, as soon as their own agitation and the bustle of the attendants had

somewhat abated. Miss Vere kneeled beside the tomb of her mother, to whose statue her features exhibited a

marked resemblance. She held the hand of the Dwarf, which she kissed repeatedly and bathed with tears. He

stood fixed and motionless, excepting that his eyes glanced alternately on the marble figure and the living

suppliant. At length, the large drops which gathered on his eyelashes compelled him to draw his hand across

"I thought," he said, "that tears and I had done; but we shed them at our birth, and their spring dries not until

we are in our graves. But no melting of the heart shall dissolve my resolution. I part here, at once, and for

ever, with all of which the memory" (looking to the tomb), "or the presence" (he pressed Isabella's hand), "is

dear to me.Speak not to me! attempt not to thwart my determination! it will avail nothing; you will hear of

and see this lump of deformity no more. To you I shall be dead ere I am actually in my grave, and you will

think of me as of a friend disencumbered from the toils and crimes of existence."

He kissed Isabella on the forehead, impressed another kiss on the brow of the statue by which she knelt, and

left the chapel followed by Ratcliffe. Isabella, almost exhausted by the emotions of the day, was carried to her

apartment by her women. Most of the other guests dispersed, after having separately endeavoured to impress

on all who would listen to them their disapprobation of the plots formed against the government, or their

regret for having engaged in them. Hobbie Elliot assumed the command of the castle for the night, and

mounted a regular guard. He boasted not a little of the alacrity with which his friends and he had obeyed a

hasty summons received from Elshie through the faithful Ratcliffe. And it was a lucky chance, he said, that

on that very day they had got notice that Westburnflat did not intend to keep his tryste at Castleton, but to

hold them at defiance; so that a considerable party had assembled at the Heughfoot, with the intention of

paying a visit to the robber's tower on the ensuing morning, and their course was easily directed to Ellieslaw

On the next morning, Mr. Ratcliffe presented Miss Vere with a letter from her father, of which the following

"MY DEAREST CHILD, The malice of a persecuting government will compel me, for my own safety, to

retreat abroad, and to remain for some time in foreign parts. I do not ask you to accompany, or follow me;

you will attend to my interest and your own more effectually by remaining where you are. It is unnecessary to

enter into a minute detail concerning the causes of the strange events which yesterday took place. I think I

have reason to complain of the usage I have received from Sir Edward Mauley, who is your nearest kinsman

by the mother's side; but as he has declared you his heir, and is to put you in immediate possession of a large

part of his fortune, I account it a full atonement. I am aware he has never forgiven the preference which your

mother gave to my addresses, instead of complying with the terms of a sort of family compact, which

absurdly and tyrannically destined her to wed her deformed relative. The shock was even sufficient to

unsettle his wits (which, indeed, were never overwell arranged), and I had, as the husband of his nearest

kinswoman and heir, the delicate task of taking care of his person and property, until he was reinstated in the

management of the latter by those who, no doubt, thought they were doing him justice; although, if some

parts of his subsequent conduct be examined, it will appear that he ought, for his own sake, to have been left

"In one particular, however, he showed a sense of the ties of blood, as well as of his own frailty; for while he

sequestered himself closely from the world, under various names and disguises, and insisted on spreading a

report of his own death (in which to gratify him I willingly acquiesced), he left at my disposal the rents of a

great proportion of his estates, and especially all those, which, having belonged to your mother, reverted to

him as a male fief. In this he may have thought that he was acting with extreme generosity, while, in the

opinion of all impartial men, he will only be considered as having fulfilled a natural obligation, seeing that, in

justice, if not in strict law, you must be considered as the heir of your mother, and I as your legal

administrator. Instead, therefore, of considering myself as loaded with obligations to Sir Edward on this

account, I think I had reason to complain that these remittances were only doled out to me at the pleasure of

Mr. Ratcliffe, who, moreover, exacted from me mortgages over my paternal estate of Ellieslaw for any sums

which I required as an extra advance; and thus may be said to have insinuated himself into the absolute

management and control of my property. Or, if all this seeming friendship was employed by Sir Edward for

the purpose of obtaining a complete command of my affairs, and acquiring the power of ruining me at his

pleasure, I feel myself, I must repeat, still less bound by the alleged obligation.

"About the autumn of last year, as I understand, either his own crazed imagination, or the accomplishment of

some such scheme as I have hinted, brought him down to this country. His alleged motive, it seems, was a

desire of seeing a monument which he had directed to be raised in the chapel over the tomb of your mother.

Mr. Ratcliffe, who at this time had done me the honour to make my house his own, had the complaisance to

introduce him secretly into the chapel. The consequence, as he informs me, was a frenzy of several hours,

during which he fled into the neighbouring moors, in one of the wildest spots of which he chose, when he

was somewhat recovered, to fix his mansion, and set up for a sort of country empiric, a character which, even

in his best days, he was fond of assuming. It is remarkable, that, instead of informing me of these

circumstances, that I might have had the relative of my late wife taken such care of as his calamitous

condition required, Mr. Ratcliffe seems to have had such culpable indulgence for his irregular plans as to

promise and even swear secrecy concerning them. He visited Sir Edward often, and assisted in the fantastic

task he had taken upon him of constructing a hermitage. Nothing they appear to have dreaded more than a

"The ground was open in every direction around, and a small subterranean cave, probably sepulchral, which

their researches had detected near the great granite pillar, served to conceal Ratcliffe, when any one

approached his master. I think you will be of opinion, my love, that this secrecy must have had some strong

motive. It is also remarkable, that while I thought my unhappy friend was residing among the Monks of La

Trappe, he should have been actually living, for many months, in this bizarre disguise, within five miles of

my house, and obtaining regular information of my most private movements, either by Ratcliffe, or through

Westburnflat or others, whom he had the means to bribe to any extent. He makes it a crime against me that I

endeavoured to establish your marriage with Sir Frederick. I acted for the best; but if Sir Edward Mauley

thought otherwise, why did he not step manfully forward, express his own purpose of becoming a party to the

settlements, and take that interest which he is entitled to claim in you as heir to his great property?

"Even now, though your rash and eccentric relation is somewhat tardy in announcing his purpose, I am far

from opposing my authority against his wishes, although the person he desires you to regard as your future

husband be young Earnscliff; the very last whom I should have thought likely to be acceptable to him,

considering a certain fatal event. But I give my free and hearty consent, providing the settlements are drawn

in such an irrevocable form as may secure my child from suffering by that state of dependence, and that

sudden and causeless revocation of allowances, of which I have so much reason to complain. Of Sir Frederick

Langley, I augur, you will hear no more. He is not likely to claim the hand of a dowerless maiden. I therefore

commit you, my dear Isabella, to the wisdom of Providence and to your own prudence, begging you to lose

no time in securing those advantages, which the fickleness of your kinsman has withdrawn from me to

"Mr. Ratcliffe mentioned Sir Edward's intention to settle a considerable sum upon me yearly, for my

maintenance in foreign parts; but this my heart is too proud to accept from him. I told him I had a dear child,

who, while in affluence herself, would never suffer me to be in poverty. I thought it right to intimate this to

him pretty roundly, that whatever increase be settled upon you, it may be calculated so as to cover this

necessary and natural encumbrance. I shall willingly settle upon you the castle and manor of Ellieslaw, to

show my parental affection and disinterested zeal for promoting your settlement in life. The annual interest of

debts charged on the estate somewhat exceeds the income, even after a reasonable rent has been put upon the

mansion and mains. But as all the debts are in the person of Mr. Ratcliffe, as your kinsman's trustee, he will

not be a troublesome creditor. And here I must make you aware, that though I have to complain of Mr.

Ratcliffe's conduct to me personally, I, nevertheless, believe him a just and upright man, with whom you may

safely consult on your affairs, not to mention that to cherish his good opinion will be the best way to retain

that of your kinsman. Remember me to MarchieI hope he will not be troubled on account of late matters. I

will write more fully from the Continent. Meanwhile, I rest your loving father, RICHARD VERE."

The above letter throws the only additional light which we have been able to procure upon the earlier part of

our story. It was Hobbie's opinion, and may be that of most of our readers,that the Recluse of

MucklestaneMoor had but a kind of a gleaming, or twilight understanding; and that he had neither very

clear views as to what he himself wanted, nor was apt to pursue his ends by the clearest and most direct

means; so that to seek the clew of his conduct, was likened, by Hobbie, to looking for a straight path through

a common, over which are a hundred devious tracks, but not one distinct line of road.

When Isabella had perused the letter, her first enquiry was after her father. He had left the castle, she was

informed, early in the morning, after a long interview with Mr. Ratcliffe, and was already far on his way to

"Odd, if onything has befa'en puir Elshie," said Hobbie Elliot, "I wad rather I were harried ower again."

He immediately rode to his dwelling, and the remaining shegoat came bleating to meet him, for her milking

time was long past. The Solitary was nowhere to be seen; his door, contrary to wont, was open, his fire

extinguished, and the whole hut was left in the state which it exhibited on Isabella's visit to him. It was pretty

clear that the means of conveyance which had brought the Dwarf to Ellieslaw on the preceding evening, had

removed him from it to some other place of abode. Hobbie returned disconsolate to the castle.

"You have indeed," said Ratcliffe, producing a paper, which he put into Hobbie's hands; "but read that, and

It was a short deed of gift, by which "Sir Edward Mauley, otherwise called Elshender the Recluse, endowed

Halbert or Hobbie Elliot, and Grace Armstrong, in full property, with a considerable sum borrowed by Elliot

Hobbie's joy was mingled with feelings which brought tears down his rough cheeks.

"It's a queer thing," he said; "but I canna joy in the gear, unless I kend the puir body was happy that gave it

"Next to enjoying happiness ourselves," said Ratcliffe, "is the consciousness of having bestowed it on others.

Had all my master's benefits been conferred like the present, what a different return would they have

produced! But the indiscriminate profusion that would glut avarice, or supply prodigality, neither does good,

"And that wad be a light har'st," said Hobbie; "but, wi' my young leddie's leave, I wad fain take down Eishie's

skeps o' bees, and set them in Grace's bit flower yard at the Heughfootthey shall ne'er be smeekit by ony

o' huz. And the puir goat, she would be negleckit about a great toun like this; and she could feed bonnily on

our lily lea by the burn side, and the hounds wad ken her in a day's time, and never fash her, and Grace wad

milk her ilka morning wi' her ain hand, for Elshie's sake; for though he was thrawn and cankered in his

Hobbie's requests were readily granted, not without some wonder at the natural delicacy of feeling which

pointed out to him this mode of displaying his gratitude. He was delighted when Ratcliffe informed him that

his benefactor should not remain ignorant of the care which he took of his favourite.

"And mind be sure and tell him that grannie and the titties, and, abune a', Grace and mysell, are weel and

And Elliot and the family at Heughfoot were, and continued to be, as fortunate and happy as his undaunted

All bar between the marriage of Earnscliff and Isabella was now removed, and the settlements which

Ratcliffe produced on the part of Sir Edward Mauley, might have satisfied the cupidity of Ellieslaw himself.

But Miss Vere and Ratcliffe thought it unnecessary to mention to Earnscliff that one great motive of Sir

Edward, in thus loading the young pair with benefits, was to expiate his having, many years before, shed the

blood of his father in a hasty brawl. If it be true, as Ratcliffe asserted, that the Dwarf's extreme misanthropy

seemed to relax somewhat, under the consciousness of having diffused happiness among so many, the

recollection of this circumstance might probably be one of his chief motives for refusing obstinately ever to

Mareschal hunted, shot, and drank clarettired of the country, went abroad, served three campaigns, came

Years fled over the heads of Earnscliff and his wife, and found and left them contented and happy. The

scheming ambition of Sir Frederick Langley engaged him in the unfortunate insurrection of 1715. He was

made prisoner at Preston, in Lancashire, with the Earl of Derwentwater, and others. His defence, and the

dying speech which he made at his execution, may be found in the State Trials. Mr. Vere, supplied by his

daughter with an ample income, continued to reside abroad, engaged deeply in the affair of Law's bank

during the regency of the Duke of Orleans, and was at one time supposed to be immensely rich. But, on the

bursting of that famous bubble, he was so much chagrined at being again reduced to a moderate annuity

(although he saw thousands of his companions in misfortune absolutely starving), that vexation of mind

brought on a paralytic stroke, of which he died, after lingering under its effects a few weeks.

Willie of Westburnflat fled from the wrath of Hobbie Elliot, as his betters did from the pursuit of the law. His

patriotism urged him to serve his country abroad, while his reluctance to leave his native soil pressed him

rather to remain in the beloved island, and collect purses, watches, and rings on the highroads at home.

Fortunately for him, the first impulse prevailed, and he joined the army under Marlborough; obtained a

commission to which he was recommended by his services in collecting cattle for the commissariat; returned

home after many years, with some money (how come by Heaven only knows),demolished the peelhouse

at Westburnflat, and built, in its stead, a high narrow ONSTEAD, of three stories, with a chimney at each

enddrank brandy with the neighbours, whom, in his younger days, he had plundereddied in his bed, and

is recorded upon his tombstone at Kirkwhistle (still extant), as having played all the parts of a brave soldier, a

Mr. Ratcliffe resided usually with the family at Ellieslaw, but regularly every spring and autumn he absented

himself for about a month. On the direction and purpose of his periodical journey he remained steadily silent;

but it was well understood that he was then in attendance on his unfortunate patron. At length, on his return

from one of these visits, his grave countenance, and deep mourning dress, announced to the Ellieslaw family

that their benefactor was no more. Sir Edward's death made no addition to their fortune, for he had divested

himself of his property during his lifetime, and chiefly in their favour. Ratcliffe, his sole confidant, died at a

good old age, but without ever naming the place to which his master had finally retired, or the manner of his

death, or the place of his burial. It was supposed that on all these particulars his patron had enjoined him strict

The sudden disappearance of Elshie from his extraordinary hermitage corroborated the reports which the

common people had spread concerning him. Many believed that, having ventured to enter a consecrated

building, contrary to his paction with the Evil One, he had been bodily carried off while on his return to his

cottage; but most are of opinion that he only disappeared for a season, and continues to be seen from time to

time among the hills. And retaining, according to custom, a more vivid recollection of his wild and desperate

language, than of the benevolent tendency of most of his actions, he is usually identified with the malignant

demon called the Man of the Moors, whose feats were quoted by Mrs. Elliot to her grandsons; and,

accordingly, is generally represented as bewitching the sheep, causing the ewes to KEB, that is, to cast their

lambs, or seen loosening the impending wreath of snow to precipitate its weight on such as take shelter,

during the storm, beneath the bank of a torrent, or under the shelter of a deep glen. In short, the evils most

dreaded and deprecated by the inhabitants of that pastoral country, are ascribed to the agency of the BLACK