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. 291
ness that greatly confirmed the opinion of his possessing preternatural
skill. The querists usually left some offering upon a stone, at a distance
firom 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 she-goats from Earnscliff, which fed on the moor, and supplied him
with milk.
When Earnscliff found his gift had been received, he soon afterwards
paid the hermit a visit. The old man was seated on 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 to make himself visible,
or to give audience to any one whomsoever.
Earnscliff had been fishing in a small river at some distance. Hle had
his rod in his hand, and his basket, filled with trout, at his shoulder. Hle
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
mis-shapen 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 reception of his goats.
"Yoru labour hard, Elshie," he said, willing to lead this singular being
into conversation.
"Labour," re-echoed the Dwarf, "is the mildest. evil of a lot so miserable as that of mankind; better to labour like me, than sport like you."
" I cannot defend the humanity of our ordinary rural sports, Elshie, and
yet — "
" 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 fellow-creatures. Yet why should I say so? Why should not the
wrlole 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 fellows -he, when his prey failed him, to
be roaring whole days for lack of food, and,'finally, to die, inch by inch,
of famine-it were a consummation worthy of the race 1"
"Your deeds are better, Elshie, than your words," answered Earnscliff;' you labour to preserve the race whom your misanthropy slanders."
" 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 Westburnfiat was deemed to be on his death-bed?-My draughts, my skill, recovered
him. And, now, who dare leave his herd upon the lea without a watch, or
go to bed without unchaining the sleuth-hound?"`"I ow n," answered Earnscliff, "you did little good to society by the
last of these cures. But, to balance the evil, there is my friend Hobbie,