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.

346 WAVE 1RLEY NOVELS.
" My father's danger, and your own command," she replied faintly, but
firmly.
"And you hope for aid from me?"
"If you can bestow it," she replied, still in the same tone of mild submission.
" 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."
"Then must I depart, and face my fate as I best may!"
"No i" said the Dwarf, rising and interposing between her and the door,
and motioning to her sternly to resume her seat-" No 1 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 you-I, 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 fire-light —" 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 strongest that shall
threaten me with injury."
It was with difficulty Isabella refrained from screaming out aloud; but
she did refrain.
"This," continued the Recluse, "is the life of nature, solitary, self-sufficing, 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
her prey."
"And when they are unable to procure themselves support," said Isabella, judiciously thinking he would be most accessible to argument couched
in his own metaphorical style, "what then is to befall them?"
"Let them starve, die, and be forgotten: it is the common lot of humanity."
" 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 mankind — the 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 without
guilt."
"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
should perish? Wert thou not frightened?"
"Misery,' said Isabella, firmly, " is superior to fear."
" Hast thou not heard it said in thy mortal world that I have leagued
myself to other powers, deformed to the eye and malevolent to the human
race as myself? Hast thou not heard this?-And dost thou seek my cell
at midnight?"
" The being I worship supports me against such idle fears," said Isabella; but the increasing agitation of her bosom belied the affected courage
which her words expressed.
"' Ho! hol" said the Dwarf, " thou vauntest thyself a philosopher? Yet,