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The Black Dwarf-Part9_WALTER SCOTT(1771-1832)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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poor; your habitation is far from human aid, were you ill, or in

want; your situation, in many respects, exposes you to the



suspicions of the vulgar, which are too apt to break out into

actions of brutality. Let me think I have mended the lot of one



human being! Accept of such assistance as I have power to offer;

do this for my sake, if not for your own, that when these evils



arise, which you prophesy perhaps too truly, I may not have to

reflect, that the hours of my happier time have been passed



altogether in vain."

The old man answered with a broken voice, and almost without



addressing himself to the young lady,--

"Yes, 'tis thus thou shouldst think--'tis thus thou shouldst



speak, if ever human speech and thought kept touch with each

other! They do not--they do not--Alas! they cannot. And yet--



wait here an instant--stir not till my return." He went to his

little garden, and returned with a half-blown rose. "Thou hast



made me shed a tear, the first which has wet my eyelids for many

a year; for that good deed receive this token of gratitude. It



is but a common rose; preserve it, however, and do not part with

it. Come to me in your hour of adversity. Show me that rose, or



but one leaf of it, were it withered as my heart is--if it should

be in my fiercest and wildest movements of rage against a hateful



world, still it will recall gentler thoughts to my bosom, and

perhaps afford happier prospects to thine. But no message," he



exclaimed, rising into his usual mood of misanthropy,--"no

message--no go-between! Come thyself; and the heart and the



doors that are shut against every other earthly being, shall open

to thee and to thy sorrows. And now pass on."



He let go the bridle-rein, and the young lady rode on, after

expressing her thanks to this singular being, as well as her



surprise at the extraordinary nature of his address would permit,

often turning back to look at the Dwarf, who still remained at



the door of his habitation, and watched her progress over the

moor towards her father's castle of Ellieslaw, until the brow of



the hill hid the party from his sight.

The ladies, meantime, jested with Miss Vere on the strange



interview they had just had with the far-famed wizard of the

Moor. "Isabella has all the luck at home and abroad! Her hawk



strikes down the black-cock; her eyes wound the gallant; no

chance for her poor companions and kinswomen; even the conjuror



cannot escape the force of her charms. You should, in

compassion, cease to be such an engrosser, my dear Isabel, or at



least set up shop, and sell off all the goods you do not mean to

keep for your own use."



"You shall have them all," replied Miss Vere, "and the conjuror

to boot, at a very easy rate."



"No! Nancy shall have the conjuror," said Miss Ilderton, "to

supply deficiencies; she's not quite a witch herself, you know."



"Lord, sister," answered the younger Miss Ilderton, "what could I

do with so frightful a monster? I kept my eyes shut, after once



glancing at him; and, I protest, I thought I saw him still,

though I winked as close as ever I could."



"That's a pity," said her sister; "ever while you live, Nancy,

choose an admirer whose faults can be hid by winking at them.--



Well, then, I must take him myself, I suppose, and put him into

mamma's Japan cabinet, in order to show that Scotland can produce



a specimen of mortal clay moulded into a form ten thousand times

uglier than the imaginations of Canton and Pekin, fertile as they



are in monsters, have immortalized in porcelain."

"There is something," said Miss Vere, "so melancholy in the



situation of this poor man, that I cannot enter into your mirth,

Lucy, so readily as usual. If he has no resources, how is he to



exist in this waste country, living, as he does, at such a

distance from mankind? and if he has the means of securing



occasional assistance, will not the very suspicion that he is

possessed of them, expose him to plunder and assassination by



some of our unsettled neighbours?"

"But you forget that they say he is a warlock," said Nancy



Ilderton.

"And, if his magic diabolical should fail him," rejoined her






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