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 warst come to the warst,
it's but wringing the head o' him about at last."

In this disposition of accommodation he approached the hut of the
Solitary.

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, if I canna win at him
otherwise."

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 counsel of your wisdom."

"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 one who approached it, without the possibility of their looking
in upon him.

"The better!" said Hobbie impatiently; "what is the better, Elshie? Do
you not hear me tell you I am the most miserable wretch living?"

"And do you not hear me tell you it is so much the better! and did I
not tell you this morning, when you thought yourself so happy, what an
evening was coming upon you?"

"That ye did e'en," replied Hobbie, "and that gars me come to you for
advice now; they that foresaw the trouble maun ken the cure."

"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 amiable--of 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,