第23章

Let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's booty; let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon.

HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I.

The Solitary had consumed the remainder of that day in which he had the interview with the young ladies, within the precincts of his garden.Evening again found him seated on his favourite stone.The sun setting red, and among seas of rolling clouds, threw a gloomy lustre over the moor, and gave a deeper purple to the broad outline of heathy mountains which surrounded this desolate spot.The Dwarf sate watching the clouds as they lowered above each other in masses of conglomerated vapours, and, as a strong lurid beam of the sinking luminary darted full on his solitary and uncouth figure, he might well have seemed the demon of the storm which was gathering, or some gnome summoned forth from the recesses of the earth by the subterranean signals of its approach.As he sate thus, with his dark eye turned towards the scowling and blackening heaven, a horseman rode rapidly up to him, and stopping, as if to let his horse breathe for an instant, made a sort of obeisance to the anchoret, with an air betwixt effrontery and embarrassment.

The figure of the rider was thin, tall, and slender, but remarkably athletic, bony, and sinewy; like one who had all his life followed those violent exercises which prevent the human form from increasing in bulk, while they harden and confirm by habit its muscular powers.His face, sharp-featured, sun-burnt, and freckled, had a sinister expression of violence, impudence, and cunning, each of which seemed alternately to predominate over the others.Sandy-coloured hair, and reddish eyebrows, from under which looked forth his sharp grey eyes, completed the inauspicious outline of the horseman's physiognomy.He had pistols in his holsters, and another pair peeped from his belt, though he had taken some pains to conceal them by buttoning his doublet.He wore a rusted steel head piece; a buff jacket of rather an antique cast; gloves, of which that for the right hand was covered with small scales of iron, like an ancient gauntlet;and a long broadsword completed his equipage.

"So," said the Dwarf," rapine and murder once more on horseback.""On horseback?" said the bandit; "ay, ay, Elshie, your leech-craft has set me on the bonny bay again.""And all those promises of amendment which you made during your illness forgotten?" continued Elshender.

"All clear away, with the water-saps and panada," returned the unabashed convalescent."Ye ken, Elshie, for they say ye are weel acquent wi' the gentleman,"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be, When the devil was well, the devil a monk was he.""Thou say'st true," said the Solitary; "as well divide a wolf from his appetite for carnage, or a raven from her scent of slaughter, as thee from thy accursed propensities.""Why, what would you have me to do? It's born with me--lies in my very blude and bane.Why, man, the lads of Westburnflat, for ten lang descents, have been reivers and lifters.They have all drunk hard, lived high, taking deep revenge for light offence, and never wanted gear for the winning.""Right; and thou art as thorough-bred a wolf," said the Dwarf, "as ever leapt a lamb-fold at night.On what hell's errand art thou bound now?""Can your skill not guess?"