The Black Dwarf

Chapter 1

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 short

rents, I'm thinking."

Here my WORTHY AND LEARNED patron again interposed, and observed, "that

he could never perceive any material difference, in point of longitude,

between one sheep and another."

This occasioned a loud hoarse laugh on the part of the farmer, and an

astonished stare on the part of the shepherd.

"It's the woo', man,--it's the woo', and no the beasts themsells, that

makes them be ca'd lang or short. I believe if ye were to measure their

backs, the short sheep wad be rather the langer-bodied o' the twa; but

it's the woo' that pays the rent in thae days, and it had muckle need."

"Odd, Bauldie says very true,--short sheep did make short rents--my

father paid for our steading just threescore punds, and it stands me in

three hundred, plack and bawbee.--And that's very true--I hae nae time

to be standing here clavering--Landlord, get us our breakfast, and see

an' get the yauds fed--I am for doun to Christy Wilson's, to see if him

and me can gree about the luckpenny I am to gie him for his year-aulds.

We had drank sax mutchkins to the making the bargain at St. Boswell's

fair, and some gate we canna gree upon the particulars preceesely, for

as muckle time as we took about it--I doubt we draw to a plea--But hear

ye, neighbour," addressing my WORTHY AND LEARNED patron, "if ye want to

hear onything about lang or short sheep, I will be back here to my kail

against ane o'clock; or, if ye want ony auld-warld stories about the

Black Dwarf, and sic-like, if ye'll ware a half mutchkin upon Bauldie

there, he'll crack t'ye like a pen-gun. And I'se gie ye a mutchkin

mysell, man, if I can settle weel wi' Christy Wilson."

The farmer returned at the hour appointed, and with him came Christy

Wilson, their difference having been fortunately settled without an

appeal to the gentlemen of the long robe. My LEARNED AND WORTHY patron

failed not to attend, both on account of the refreshment promised to the

mind and to the body, ALTHOUGH HE IS KNOWN TO PARTAKE OF THE LATTER IN

A VERY MODERATE DEGREE; and the party, with which my Landlord was

associated, continued to sit late in the evening, seasoning their liquor

with many choice tales and songs. The last incident which I recollect,

was my LEARNED AND WORTHY patron falling from his chair, just as he

concluded a long lecture upon temperance, by reciting, from the "Gentle

Shepherd," a couplet, which he RIGHT HAPPILY transferred from the vice

of avarice to that of ebriety:

He that has just eneugh may soundly sleep,

The owercome only fashes folk to keep.

In the course of the evening the Black Dwarf had not been forgotten,

and the old shepherd, Bauldie, told so many stories of him, that they

excited a good deal of interest. It also appeared, though not till the

third punch-bowl was emptied, that much of the farmer's scepticism on

the subject was affected, as evincing a liberality of thinking, and a

freedom from ancient prejudices, becoming a man who paid three hundred

pounds a-year of rent, while, in fact, he had a lurking belief in the

traditions of his forefathers. After my usual manner, I made farther

enquiries of other persons connected with the wild and pastoral district

in which the scene of the following narrative is placed, and I was

fortunate enough to recover many links of the story, not generally

known, and which account, at least in some degree, for the circumstances

of exaggerated marvel with which superstition has attired it in the more

vulgar traditions.

[The Black Dwarf, now almost forgotten, was once held a formidable

personage by the dalesmen of the Border, where he got the blame of

whatever mischief befell the sheep or cattle. "He was," says Dr. Leyden,

who makes considerable use of him in the ballad called the Cowt of

Keeldar, "a fairy of the most malignant order--the genuine Northern

Duergar." The best and most authentic account of this dangerous and

mysterious being occurs in a tale communicated to the author by that

eminent antiquary, Richard Surtees, Esq. of Mainsforth, author of the

HISTORY OF THE BISHOPRIC OF DURHAM.

According to this well-attested legend, two young Northumbrians were

out on a shooting party, and had plunged deep among the mountainous

moorlands which border on Cumberland. They stopped for refreshment in

a little secluded dell by the side of a rivulet. There, after they had

partaken of such food as they brought with them, one of the party fell

asleep; the other, unwilling to disturb his friend's repose, stole

silently out of the dell with the purpose of looking around him, when he

was astonished to find himself close to a being who seemed not to belong

to this world, as he was the most hideous dwarf that the sun had ever

shone on. His head was of full human size, forming a frightful contrast

with his height, which was considerably under four feet. It was thatched

with no other covering than long matted red hair, like that of the felt

of a badger in consistence, and in colour a reddish brown, like the hue

of the heather-blossom. His limbs seemed of great strength; nor was he

otherwise deformed than from their undue proportion in thickness to his

diminutive height. The terrified sportsman stood gazing on this horrible

apparition, until, with an angry countenance, the being demanded by what

right he intruded himself on those hills, and destroyed their harmless

inhabitants. The perplexed stranger endeavoured to propitiate the

incensed dwarf, by offering to surrender his game, as he would to an

earthly Lord of the Manor. The proposal only redoubled the offence

already taken by the dwarf, who alleged that he was the lord of those

mountains, and the protector of the wild creatures who found a retreat

in their solitary recesses; and that all spoils derived from their

death, or misery, were abhorrent to him. The hunter humbled himself

before the angry goblin, and by protestations of his ignorance, and

of his resolution to abstain from such intrusion in future, at last

succeeded in pacifying him. The gnome now became more communicative, and

spoke of himself as belonging to a species of beings something between

the angelic race and humanity. He added, moreover, which could hardly

have been anticipated, that he had hopes of sharing in the redemption of

the race of Adam. He pressed the sportsman to visit his dwelling, which

he said was hard by, and plighted his faith for his safe return. But at

this moment, the shout of the sportsman's companion was heard calling

for his friend, and the dwarf, as if unwilling that more than one

person should be cognisant of his presence, disappeared as the young man

emerged from the dell to join his comrade.

It was the universal opinion of those most experienced in such

matters, that if the shooter had accompanied the spirit, he would,

notwithstanding the dwarf's fair pretences, have been either torn to

pieces, or immured for years in the recesses of some fairy hill.

Such is the last and most authentic account of the apparition of the

Black Dwarf.]