occasion for money, save to purchase snuff, his only luxury, in

which he indulged himself liberally. When he died, in the
beginning of the present century, he was found to have hoarded

about twenty pounds, a habit very consistent with his
disposition; for wealth is power, and power was what David

Ritchie desired to possess, as a compensation for his exclusion
from human society.

His sister survived till the publication of the tale to which
this brief notice forms the introduction; and the author is sorry

to learn that a sort of "local sympathy," and the curiosity then
expressed concerning the Author of WAVERLEY and the subjects of

his Novels, exposed the poor woman to enquiries which gave her
pain. When pressed about her brother's peculiarities, she asked,

in her turn, why they would not permit the dead to rest? To
others, who pressed for some account of her parents, she answered

in the same tone of feeling.
The author saw this poor, and, it may be said, unhappy man, in

autumn 1797 being then, as he has the happiness still to remain,
connected by ties of intimate friendship with the family of the

venerable Dr. Adam Fergusson, the philosopher and historian, who
then resided at the mansion-house of Halyards, in the vale of

Manor, about a mile from Ritchie's hermitage, the author was upon
a visit at Halyards, which lasted for several days, and was made

acquainted with this singular anchorite, whom Dr. Fergusson
considered as an extraordinarycharacter, and whom he assisted in

various ways, particularly by the occasional loan of books.
Though the taste of the philosopher and the poor peasant did not,

it may be supposed, always correspond, [I remember David was
particularly anxious to see a book, which he called, I think,

LETTERS TO ELECT LADIES, and which, he said, was the best
composition he had ever read; but Dr. Fergusson's library did not

supply the volume.] Dr. Fergusson considered him as a man of a
powerful capacity and original ideas, but whose mind was thrown

off its just bias by a predominant degree of self-love and self-
opinion, galled by the sense of ridicule and contempt, and

avenging itself upon society, in idea at least, by a gloomy
misanthropy.

David Ritchie, besides the utter obscurity of his life while in
existence, had been dead for many years, when it occurred to the

author that such a character might be made a powerful agent in
fictitious narrative. He, accordingly, sketched that of Elshie

of the Mucklestane-Moor. The story was intended to be longer,
and the catastrophe more artificially brought out; but a friendly

critic, to whose opinion I subjected the work in its progress,
was of opinion, that the idea of the Solitary was of a kind too

revolting, and more likely to disgust than to interest the
reader. As I had good right to consider my adviser as an

excellent judge of public opinion, I got off my subject by
hastening the story to an end, as fast as it was possible; and,

by huddling into one volume, a tale which was designed to occupy
two, have perhaps produced a narrative as much disproportioned

and distorted, as the Black Dwarf who is its subject.
*

III. THE BLACK DWARF.
CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY.
Hast any philosophy in thee, Shepherd? AS YOU LIKE IT.

It was a fine April morning (excepting that it had snowed hard
the night before, and the ground remained covered with a dazzling

mantle of six inches in depth) when two horsemen rode up to the
Wallace Inn. The first was a strong, tall, powerful man, in a

grey riding-coat, having a hat covered with waxcloth, a huge
silver-mounted horsewhip, boots, and dreadnought overalls. He

was mounted on a large strong brown mare, rough in coat, but well
in condition, with a saddle of the yeomanry cut, and a double-

bitted military bridle. The man who accompanied him was
apparently his servant; he rode a shaggy little grey pony, had a

blue bonnet on his head, and a large check napkin folded about
his neck, wore a pair of long blue worsted hose instead of boots,

had his gloveless hands much stained with tar, and observed an
air of deference and respect towards his companion, but without

any of those indications of precedence and punctilio which are
preserved between the gentry and their domestics. On the

contrary, the two travellers entered the court-yard abreast, and
the concluding sentence of the conversation which had been

carrying on betwixt them was a joint ejaculation, "Lord guide us,
an this weather last, what will come o' the lambs!" The hint was

sufficient for my Landlord, who, advancing to take the horse of
the principal person, and holding him by the reins as he

dismounted, while his ostler rendered the same service to the
attendant, welcomed the stranger to Gandercleugh, and, in the

same breath, enquired, "What news from the south hielands?"
"News?" said the farmer, "bad eneugh news, I think;--an we can

carry through the yowes, it will be a' we can do; we maun e'en
leave the lambs to the Black Dwarfs care."

"Ay, ay," subjoined the old shepherd (for such he was), shaking
his head, "he'll be unco busy amang the morts this season."

"The Black Dwarf!" said MY LEARNED FRIEND AND PATRON, Mr.
Jedediah Cleishbotham, "and what sort of a personage may he be?"

[We have, in this and other instances, printed in italics
(CAPITALS in this etext) some few words which the worthy editor,

Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, seems to have interpolated upon the
text of his deceased friend, Mr. Pattieson. We must observe,

once for all, that such liberties seem only to have been taken by
the learned gentleman where his own character and conduct are

concerned; and surely he must be the best judge of the style in
which his own character and conduct should be treated of.]

"Hout awa, man," answered the farmer, "ye'll hae heard o' Canny
Elshie the Black Dwarf, or I am muckle mistaen--A' the warld

tells tales about him, but it's but daft nonsense after a'--I
dinna believe a word o't frae beginning to end."

"Your father believed it unco stievely, though," said the old
man, to whom the scepticism of his master gave obvious

displeasure.
"Ay, very true, Bauldie, but that was in the time o' the

blackfaces--they believed a hantle queer things in thae days,
that naebody heeds since the lang sheep cam in."

"The mair's the pity, the mair's the pity," said the old man.
"Your father, and sae I have aften tell'd ye, maister, wad hae

been sair vexed to hae seen the auld peel-house wa's pu'd down to
make park dykes; and the bonny broomy knowe, where he liked sae

weel to sit at e'en, wi' his plaid about him, and look at the kye
as they cam down the loaning, ill wad he hae liked to hae seen

that braw sunny knowe a' riven out wi' the pleugh in the fashion
it is at this day."

"Hout, Bauldie," replied the principal, "tak ye that dram the
landlord's offering ye, and never fash your head about the

changes o' the warld, sae lang as ye're blithe and bien
yoursell."

"Wussing your health, sirs," said the shepherd; and having taken
off his glass, and observed the whisky was the right thing, he

continued, "It's no for the like o' us to be judging, to be sure;
but it was a bonny knowe that broomy knowe, and an unco braw

shelter for the lambs in a severe morning like this."
"Ay," said his patron, "but ye ken we maun hae turnips for the

lang sheep, billie, and muckle hard wark to get them, baith wi'
the pleugh and the howe; and that wad sort ill wi' sitting on the

broomy knowe, and cracking about Black Dwarfs, and siccan
clavers, as was the gate lang syne, when the short sheep were in

the fashion."
"Aweel, aweel, maister," said the attendant, "short sheep had