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So saying, he rode off; and Elshie, after looking at him with a scornful and indignant laugh, took spade and mattock, and occupied himself in digging a grave for his deceased favourite. A low whistle, and the words, "Hisht, Elshie, hisht!" disturbed him in this melancholy occupation. He looked up, and the Red Reiver of Westburnflat was before him.
He boasted not a little of the alacrity with which his friends and he had obeyed a hasty summons received from Elshie through the faithful Ratcliffe.
Earnscliff looked around him, and observed that the hermit had increased his accommodations by the construction of a shed for the reception of his goats. "You labour hard, Elshie," he said, willing to lead this singular being into conversation. "Labour," re-echoed the Dwarf, "is the mildest evil of a lot so miserable as that of mankind; better to labour like me, than sport like you."
J.J. Ruskin called on William Hunt and found him feeble: "I like the little Elshie," he says, nicknaming him after the Black Dwarf, for Hunt was somewhat deformed: "He is softened and humanized. There is a gentleness and a greater bonhomie less reserve. I had sent him 'Pre-Raphaelitism. He had marked it very much with pencil. He greatly likes your notice of people not keeping to their last.
Let him take care o' himsell." "Then it must be Hobbie of the Heugh-foot," said Elshie. "What harm has the lad done you?" "Harm! nae great harm; but I hear he says I staid away from the Ba'spiel on Fastern's E'en, for fear of him; and it was only for fear of the Country Keeper, for there was a warrant against me. I'll stand Hobbie's feud, and a' his clan's.
Like Banquo's murderer, there was blood on his face, as well as upon the rowels of his spurs and the sides of his over-ridden horse. "How now, ruffian!" demanded the Dwarf, "is thy job chared?" "Ay, ay, doubt not that, Elshie," answered the freebooter; "When I ride, my foes may moan.
"A dreadful picture you present to me of life, Elshie; but I am not daunted by it," returned Earnscliff. "We are sent here, in one sense, to bear and to suffer; but, in another, to do and to enjoy. The active day has its evening of repose; even patient sufferance has its alleviations, where there is a consolatory sense of duty discharged."
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.
"And if I were you," said Dick of the Dingle, "I would speak to Canny Elshie. He can tell you whatever betides in this land, if he's sae minded." "He SHALL tell me," said Hobbie, who was busy putting his arms in order, "what he kens o' this night's job, or I shall right weel ken wherefore he does not."
Keep the money, principal and interest, until I demand it of thee." "But," continued the pertinacious Borderer, "we are a' life-like and death-like, Elshie, and there really should be some black and white on this transaction. Sae just make me a minute, or missive, in ony form ye like, and I'se write it fair ower, and subscribe it before famous witnesses.
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