The Black Dwarf Read online

  CHAPTER IV.

  I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind; For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog, That I might love thee something.--TIMON OF ATHENS

  On the following morning, after breakfast, Earnscliff took leave ofhis hospitable friends, promising to return in time to partake of thevenison, which had arrived from his house. Hobbie, who apparently tookleave of him at the door of his habitation, slunk out, however, andjoined him at the top of the hill.

  "Ye'll be gaun yonder, Mr. Patrick; feind o' me will mistryst you fora' my mother says. I thought it best to slip out quietly though, in caseshe should mislippen something of what we're gaun to do--we maunna vexher at nae rate--it was amaist the last word my father said to me on hisdeathbed."

  "By no means, Hobbie," said Earnscliff; "she well merits all yourattention."

  "Troth, for that matter, she would be as sair vexed amaist for you asfor me. But d'ye really think there's nae presumption in venturing backyonder?--We hae nae special commission, ye ken."

  "If I thought as you do, Hobbie," said the young gentleman, "I would notperhaps enquire farther into this business; but as I am of opinion thatpreternatural visitations are either ceased altogether, or become veryrare in our days, I am unwilling to leave a matter uninvestigated whichmay concern the life of a poor distracted being."

  "Aweel, aweel, if ye really think that," answered Hobbiedoubtfully--"And it's for certain the very fairies--I mean the very goodneighbours themsells (for they say folk suldna ca' them fairies) thatused to be seen on every green knowe at e'en, are no half sae oftenvisible 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 heused to come hame frae the fairs at e'en, wi' a drap drink in his head,honest man."

  Earnscliff was somewhat entertained with the gradual declension ofsuperstition from one generation to another which was inferred In thislast observation; and they continued to reason on such subjects, untilthey came in sight of the upright stone which gave name to the moor.

  "As I shall answer," says Hobbie, "yonder's the creature creeping aboutyet!--But it's daylight, and you have your gun, and I brought out my bitwhinger--I think we may venture on him."

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

  "Biggin a dry-stane dyke, I think, wi' the grey geese, as they ca' thaegreat loose stanes--Odd, that passes a' thing I e'er heard tell of!"

  As they approached nearer, Earnscliff could not help agreeing with hiscompanion. The figure they had seen the night before seemed slowly andtoilsomely labouring to pile the large stones one upon another, as ifto form a small enclosure. Materials lay around him in great plenty, butthe labour of carrying on the work was immense, from the size of most ofthe stones; and it seemed astonishing that he should have succeeded inmoving several which he had already arranged for the foundation of hisedifice. He was struggling to move a fragment of great size when the twoyoung men came up, and was so intent upon executing his purpose, thathe did not perceive them till they were close upon him. In strainingand heaving at the stone, in order to place it according to his wish,he displayed a degree of strength which seemed utterly inconsistent withhis size and apparent deformity. Indeed, to judge from the difficultieshe had already surmounted, he must have been of Herculean powers; forsome of the stones he had succeeded in raising apparently required twomen'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 stane-mason--see siccanband-statnes as he's laid i--An it be a man, after a', I wonder whathe wad take by the rood to build a march dyke. There's ane sair wantedbetween Cringlehope and the Shaws.--Honest man" (raising his voice), "yemake 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 hisnative and hideous deformity. His head was of uncommon size, coveredwith 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 thecoarse, rough-hewn stamp, with which a painter would equip a giantin romance; to which was added the wild, irregular, and peculiarexpression, so often seen in the countenances of those whose persons aredeformed. 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 thelegs and the thighs, or they were so very short as to be hidden by thedress which he wore. His arms were long and brawny, furnished with twomuscular hands, and, where uncovered in the eagerness of his labour,were shagged with coarse black hair. It seemed as if nature hadoriginally intended the separate parts of his body to be the members ofa giant, but had afterwards capriciously assigned them to the person ofa dwarf, so ill did the length of his arms and the iron strength of hisframe correspond with the shortness of his stature. His clothing was asort of coarse brown tunic, like a monk's frock, girt round him with abelt of seal-skin. On his head he had a cap made of badger's skin, orsome other rough fur, which added considerably to the grotesque effectof his whole appearance, and overshadowed features, whose habitualexpression seemed that of sullen malignant misanthropy.

  This remarkable Dwarf gazed on the two youths in silence, with a doggedand irritated look, until Earnscliff, willing to soothe him into bettertemper, observed, "You are hard tasked, my friend; allow us to assistyou."

  Elliot and he accordingly placed the stone, by their joint efforts, uponthe rising wall. The Dwarf watched them with the eye of a taskmaster,and testified, by peevish gestures, his impatience at the time whichthey took in adjusting the stone. He pointed to another--they raised italso--to a third, to a fourth--they continued to humour him, though withsome trouble, for he assigned them, as if intentionally, the heaviestfragments which lay near.

  "And now, friend," said Elliot, as the unreasonable Dwarf indicatedanother stone larger than any they had moved, "Earnscliff may do as helikes; but be ye man or be ye waur, deil be in my fingers if I breakmy back wi' heaving thae stanes ony langer like a barrow-man, withoutgetting sae muckle as thanks for my pains."

  "Thanks!" exclaimed the Dwarf, with a motion expressive of the utmostcontempt--"There--take them, and fatten upon them! Take them, and maythey thrive with you as they have done with me--as they have done withevery mortal worm that ever heard the word spoken by his fellow reptile!Hence--either labour or begone!"

  "This is a fine reward we have, Earnscliff, for building a tabernaclefor the devil, and prejudicing our ain souls into the bargain, for whatwe ken."

  "Our presence," answered Earnscliff, "seems only to irritate his frenzy;we had better leave him, and send some one to provide him with food andnecessaries."

  They did so. The servant dispatched for this purpose found the Dwarfstill labouring at his wall, but could not extract a word from him.The lad, infected with the superstitions of the country, did not longpersist in an attempt to intrude questions or advice on so singular afigure, but having placed the articles which he had brought for his useon 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 soincredible as to appear almost supernatural. In one day he often seemedto have done the work of two men, and his building soon assumedthe appearance of the walls of a hut, which, though very small, andconstructed only of stones and turf, without any mortar, exhibited, fromthe unusual size of the stones employed, an appearance of solidity veryuncommon for a cottage of such narrow dimensions and rude construction.Earnscliff; attentive to his motions, no sooner perceived to what theytended, than he sent down a number of spars of wood suitable for formingthe roof, which he caused to be left in the neighbourhood of the spot,resolving next day to send workmen to put th
em up. But his purpose wasanticipated, for in the evening, during the night, and early in themorning, the Dwarf had laboured so hard, and with such ingenuity, thathe had nearly completed the adjustment of the rafters. His next labourwas to cut rushes and thatch his dwelling, a task which he performedwith singular dexterity.

  As he seemed averse to receive any aid beyond the occasional assistanceof a passenger, materials suitable to his purpose, and tools, weresupplied to him, in the use of which he proved to be skilful. Heconstructed the door and window of his cot, he adjusted a rude bedstead,and a few shelves, and appeared to become somewhat soothed in his temperas his accommodations increased.

  His next task was to form a strong enclosure, and to cultivate the landwithin it to the best of his power; until, by transporting mould, andworking up what was upon the spot, he formed a patch of garden-ground.It must be naturally supposed, that, as above hinted, this solitarybeing received assistance occasionally from such travellers as crossedthe moor by chance, as well as from several who went from curiosity tovisit his works. It was, indeed, impossible to see a human creature, sounfitted, at first sight, for hard labour, toiling with such unremittingassiduity, without stopping a few minutes to aid him in his task; and,as no one of his occasional assistants was acquainted with the degreeof help which the Dwarf had received from others, the celerity of hisprogress lost none of its marvels in their eyes. The strong and compactappearance of the cottage, formed in so very short a space, and by sucha being, and the superior skill which he displayed in mechanics, and inother arts, gave suspicion to the surrounding neighbours. They insisted,that, if he was not a phantom,--an opinion which was nowabandoned, since he plainly appeared a being of blood and bone withthemselves,--yet he must be in close league with the invisible world,and have chosen that sequestered spot to carry on his communication withthem undisturbed. They insisted, though in a different sense from thephilosopher's application of the phrase, that he was never less alonethan when alone; and that from the heights which commanded the moor ata distance, passengers often discovered a person at work along withthis dweller of the desert, who regularly disappeared as soon as theyapproached closer to the cottage. Such a figure was also occasionallyseen sitting beside him at the door, walking with him in the moor, orassisting him in fetching water from his fountain. Earnscliff explainedthis phenomenon by supposing it to be the Dwarf's shadow.

  "Deil a shadow has he," replied Hobbie Elliot, who was a strenuousdefender of the general opinion; "he's ower far in wi' the Auld Ane tohave a shadow. Besides," he argued more logically, "wha ever heard of ashadow that cam between a body and the sun? and this thing, be it whatit will, is thinner and taller than the body himsell, and has been seento come between him and the sun mair than anes or twice either."

  These suspicions, which, in any other part of the country, might havebeen attended with investigations a little inconvenient to the supposedwizard, were here only productive of respect and awe. The recluse beingseemed somewhat gratified by the marks of timid veneration with whichan occasional passenger approached his dwelling, the look of startledsurprise with which he surveyed his person and his premises, and thehurried step with which he pressed his retreat as he passed the awfulspot. The boldest only stopped to gratify their curiosity by a hastyglance at the walls of his cottage and garden, and to apologize for itby a courteous salutation, which the inmate sometimes deigned to returnby a word or a nod. Earnscliff often passed that way, and seldom withoutenquiring after the solitary inmate, who seemed now to have arranged hisestablishment for life.

  It was impossible to engage him in any conversation on his own personalaffairs; nor was he communicative or accessible in talking on any othersubject whatever, although he seemed to have considerably relented inthe extreme ferocity of his misanthropy, or rather to be less frequentlyvisited with the fits of derangement of which this was a symptom. Noargument could prevail upon him to accept anything beyond the simplestnecessaries, although much more was offered by Earnscliff out ofcharity, and by his more superstitious neighbours from other motives.The benefits of these last he repaid by advice, when consulted (as atlength he slowly was) on their diseases, or those of their cattle. Heoften furnished them with medicines also, and seemed possessed, not onlyof such as were the produce of the country, but of foreign drugs.He gave these persons to understand, that his name was Elshender theRecluse; but his popular epithet soon came to be Canny Elshie, or theWise Wight of Mucklestane-Moor. Some extended their queries beyond theirbodily complaints, and requested advice upon other matters, which hedelivered with an oracular shrewdness that greatly confirmed the opinionof his possessing preternatural skill. The querists usually left someoffering 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 itaway, 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, innumber, just sufficient to express his meaning as briefly as possible,and he shunned all communication that went a syllable beyond the matterin hand. When winter had passed away, and his garden began to affordhim herbs and vegetables, he confined himself almost entirely to thosearticles of food. He accepted, notwithstanding, a pair of she-goats fromEarnscliff, which fed on the moor, and supplied him with milk.

  When Earnscliff found his gift had been received, he soon afterwardspaid the hermit a visit. The old man was seated an a broad flat stonenear his garden door, which was the seat of science he usually occupiedwhen 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 thenatives of Otaheite do their Morai;--apparently he would have deemed itpolluted by the step of any human being. When he shut himself up in hishabitation, 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. He hadhis 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, familiarizedwith his presence, took no farther notice of him than by elevating hishuge mis-shapen head for the purpose of staring at him, and then againsinking it upon his bosom, as if in profound meditation. Earnsclifflooked around him, and observed that the hermit had increased hisaccommodations by the construction of a shed for the reception of hisgoats.

  "You labour hard, Elshie," he said, willing to lead this singular beinginto conversation.

  "Labour," re-echoed the Dwarf, "is the mildest evil of a lot somiserable as that of mankind; better to labour like me, than sport likeyou."

  "I cannot defend the humanity of our ordinary rural sports, Elshie, andyet--"

  "And yet," interrupted the Dwarf, "they are better than your ordinarybusiness; better to exercise idle and wanton cruelty on mute fishes thanon your fellow-creatures. Yet why should I say so? Why should not thewhole human herd butt, gore, and gorge upon each other, till all areextirpated but one huge and over-fed Behemoth, and he, when he hadthrottled and gnawed the bones of all his fellows--he, when his preyfailed 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 therace!"

  "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 leastloathing, and I care not, if, contrary to my wont, I waste a few wordsin compassion to your infatuated blindness. If I cannot send diseaseinto families, and murrain among the herds, can I attain the same endso well as by prolonging the lives of those who can serve the purpose ofdestruction as effectually?--If Alice of Bower had died in winter, wouldyoung Ruthwin have been slain for her love the last spring?--Whothought of penning their cattle beneath the tower when the Red Reiver ofWestburnflat 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 awatch, or go to bed without unchaining the s
leuth-hound?"

  "I own," answered Earnscliff; "you did little good to society by thelast of these cures. But, to balance the evil, there is my friendHobbie, honest Hobbie of the Heugh-foot, your skill relieved him lastwinter in a fever that might have cost him his life."

  "Thus think the children of clay in their ignorance," said: the Dwarf,smiling maliciously, "and thus they speak in their folly. Have youmarked the young cub of a wild cat that has been domesticated, howsportive, how playful, how gentle,--but trust him with your game, yourlambs, your poultry, his inbred ferocity breaks forth; he gripes, tears,ravages, and devours."

  "Such is the animal's instinct," answered Earnscliff; "but what has thatto do with Hobbie?"

  "It is his emblem--it is his picture," retorted the Recluse. "He isat present tame, quiet, and domesticated, for lack of opportunity toexercise his inborn propensities; but let the trumpet of war sound--letthe young blood-hound snuff blood, he will be as ferocious as thewildest of his Border ancestors that ever fired a helpless peasant'sabode. Can you deny, that even at present he often urges you to takebloody revenge for an injury received when you were a boy?"--Earnscliffstarted; the Recluse appeared not to observe his surprise, andproceeded--"The trumpet WILL blow, the young blood-hound 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 mypart in the general tragedy. Were YOU on your sick bed, I might, incompassion, send you a cup of poison."

  "I am much obliged to you, Elshie, and certainly shall not fail toconsult you, with so comfortable a hope from your assistance."

  "Do not flatter yourself too far," replied the Hermit, "with the hopethat I will positively yield to the frailty of pity. Why should I snatcha dupe, so well fitted to endure the miseries of life as you are, fromthe 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 spoilthe three days' amusement of my kindred tribe, at the very moment whenthe brands were lighted, the pincers heated, the cauldrons boiling,the knives sharpened, to tear, scorch, seethe, and scarify the intendedvictim?"

  "A dreadful picture you present to me of life, Elshie; but I am notdaunted by it," returned Earnscliff. "We are sent here, in one sense, tobear and to suffer; but, in another, to do and to enjoy. The active dayhas its evening of repose; even patient sufferance has its alleviations,where there is a consolatory sense of duty discharged."

  "I spurn at the slavish and bestial doctrine," said the Dwarf, his eyeskindling with insane fury,--"I spurn at it, as worthy only of the beaststhat perish; but I will waste no more words with you."

  He rose hastily; but, ere he withdrew into the hut, he added, with greatvehemence, "Yet, lest you still think my apparent benefits tomankind flow from the stupid and servile source, called love of ourfellow-creatures, know, that were there a man who had annihilated mysoul's dearest hope--who had torn my heart to mammocks, and seared mybrain till it glowed like a volcano, and were that man's fortune andlife in my power as completely as this frail potsherd" (he snatched upan earthen cup which stood beside him), "I would not dash him into atomsthus"--(he flung the vessel with fury against the wall),--"No!" (hespoke more composedly, but with the utmost bitterness), "I would pamperhim with wealth and power to inflame his evil passions, and to fulfilhis evil designs; he should lack no means of vice and villainy; heshould be the centre of a whirlpool that itself should know neither restnor peace, but boil with unceasing fury, while it wrecked every goodlyship that approached its limits! he should be an earthquake capableof shaking the very land in which he dwelt, and rendering all itsinhabitants friendless, outcast, and miserable--as 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 thathated race, who had thus lashed his soul to frenzy. Earnscliff left themoor with mingled sensations of pity and horror, pondering what strangeand melancholy cause could have reduced to so miserable a state ofmind, a man whose language argued him to be of rank and education muchsuperior to the vulgar. He was also surprised to see how much particularinformation a person who had lived in that country so short a time,and in so recluse a manner, had been able to collect respecting thedispositions and private affairs of the inhabitants.

  "It is no wonder," he said to himself, "that with such extent ofinformation, such a mode of life, so uncouth a figure, and sentimentsso virulently misanthropic, this unfortunate should be regarded by thevulgar as in league with the Enemy of Mankind."