The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

THE BLACK DWARF. 299
"No; not young Earnscliff-not young Earnscliff yet; but his time may
come, if he will not take warning, and get him back to the burrow-town
that he's fit for, and no keep skelping about here, destroying the few deer
that are left in the country, and pretending to act as a magistrate, and writing letters to the great folk at Auld Reekie, about the disturbed state of the
land. Let him take care o' himsell."
" Then it must be Hobbie of the Heugh-foot," said Elshie. "What harm
has the lad done you?"
"Harm! nae great harm; but I hear he says I staid away from the
Ba'spiel on Fastern's E'en, for fear of him; and it was only for fear of the
Country Keeper, for there was a warrant against me. I'll stand I-[obbie's
feud, and a' his clans. But it's not so much for that, as to gie him a lesson
not to let his tongue gallop ower freely about his betters. I trow he will
hae lost the best pen-feather o' his wing before to-morrow morning.-Farewell, Elshie; there's some canny boys waiting for me down amang the
shaws, owerby; I will see you as I come back, and bring ye a blithe tale
in return for your leech-craft."
Ere the Dwarf could collect himself to reply, the Reiver of Westburnflat
set spurs to his horse. The animal, starting at one of the stones which lay
scattered about, flew from the path. The rider exercised his spurs without
moderation or mercy. The horse became furious, reared, kicked, plunged,
and bolted like a deer, with all his fourjfeet off the ground at once. It was
in vain; the unrelenting rider sate as if he had been a part of the horse
which he bestrode; and, after a short but furious contest, compelled the
subdued animal to proceed upon the path at a rate which soon carried him
out of sight of the Solitary.
" That villain," exclaimed the Dwarf,-" that cold-blooded, hardened, unrelenting ruffian,-that wretch, whose every thought is infected with crimes,
— has thews and sinews, limbs, strength, and activity enough, to compel a
nobler animal than himself to carry him to the place where he is to perpetrate his wickedness; while I, had I the weakness to wish to put his wretched
victim on his guard, and to save the helpless family, would see my good
intentions frustrated by the decrepitude which chains me to the spot.-Why
should I wish it were otherwise? What have my screech-owl voice, my
hideous fornm, and my mis-shapen features, to do with the fairer workmanship of nature? Do not men receive even my benefits with shrinking horror and ill-suppressed disgust? And why should I interest myself in a
race which accounts me a prodigy and an outcast, and which has treated
me as such? No; by all the ingratitude which I have reaped -by all the
wrongs which I have sustained — by my imprisonment, my stripes, my
chains, I will wrestle down my feelings of rebellious humanity! I will
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 symlpathy, ought to have sympathy with any one. Let Destiny drive forth her
scythed car through the overwhelmed and trembling mass of humanity!
Shall I be the idiot to throw this decrepit form, this mis-shapen lump of
mortality, under her wheels, that the Dwarf, the Wizard, the HIunchback,
may save from destruction some fair form or some active frame, and all the
world clap their hands at the exchange? No, never!-And yet this Elliot
-this Hobklie, so young and gallant, so frank, so -I will think of it no
longer. I cannot aid him if I would, and I ant resolved -firmly resolved,
that I would not aid him, if a wish were the pledge of his safety!"
Having thus ended his soliloquy, he retreated into his hut for shelter from
the storm whi6h was fast approaching, and now began to burst in large
and heavy drops of rain. The last rays of the sun now disappeared entirely
and two or three claps of distant thunder followed each other at brief intervals, echoing and re-echoing among the range of heathy fells like the sound
of a distant engagement.