he, of all men, was least capable of having
incurred, or of sustaining when it became his unhappy lot. His paroxysms
of agony could not be concealed from the lady to whom he was betrothed;
and it must be confessed they were of an alarming and fearful nature.
He comforted himself, that, at the expiry of his imprisonment, he could
form with his wife and friend a society, encircled by which he might
dispense with more extensive communication with the world. He was
deceived; before that term elapsed, his friend and his betrothed bride
were man and wife. The effects of a shock so dreadful on an ardent
temperament, a disposition already soured by bitter remorse, and
loosened by the indulgence of a gloomy imagination from the rest of
mankind, I cannot describe to you; it was as if the last cable at which
the vessel rode had suddenly parted, and left her abandoned to all the
wild fury of the tempest. He was placed under medical restraint. As a
temporary measure this might have been justifiable; but his hard-hearted
friend, who, in consequence of his marriage, was now his nearest ally,
prolonged his confinement, in order to enjoy the management of his
immense estates. There was one who owed his all to the sufferer, an
humble friend, but grateful and faithful. By unceasing exertion, and
repeated invocation of justice, he at length succeeded in obtaining
his patron's freedom, and reinstatement in the management of his own
property, to which was soon added that of his intended bride, who having
died without male issue, her estates reverted to him, as heir of entail.
But freedom and wealth were unable to restore the equipoise of his mind;
to the former his grief made him indifferent--the latter only served him
as far as it afforded him the means of indulging his strange and wayward
fancy. He had renounced the Catholic religion, but perhaps some of
its doctrines continued to influence a mind, over which remorse and
misanthropy now assumed, in appearance, an unbounded authority. His life
has since been that alternately of a pilgrim and a hermit, suffering
the most severe privations, not indeed in ascetic devotion, but in
abhorrence of mankind. Yet no man's words and actions have been at
such a wide difference, nor has any hypocritical wretch ever been more
ingenious in assigning good motives for his vile actions, than this
unfortunate in reconciling to his abstract principles of misanthropy,
a conduct which flows from his natural generosity and kindness of
feeling."

"Still, Mr. Ratcliffe--still you describe the inconsistencies of a
madman."

"By no means," replied Ratcliffe. "That the imagination of this
gentleman is disordered, I will not pretend to dispute; I have already
told you that it has sometimes broken out into paroxysms approaching
to real mental alienation. But it is of his common state of mind that I
speak; it is irregular, but not deranged; the shades are as gradual as
those that divide the light of noonday from midnight. The courtier who
ruins his fortune for the attainment of a title which can do him no
good, or power of which he can make no suitable or creditable use, the
miser who hoards his useless wealth, and the prodigal who squanders it,
are all marked with a certain shade of insanity. To criminals who are
guilty of enormities, when the temptation, to a sober mind, bears no
proportion to the horror of the act, or the probability of detection and
punishment, the same observation applies; and every violent passion, as
well as anger, may be termed a short madness."

"This may be all good philosophy, Mr. Ratcliffe," answered Miss Vere;
"but, excuse me, it by no means emboldens me to visit, at this late
hour, a person whose extravagance of imagination you yourself can only
palliate."

"Rather, then," said Ratcliffe, "receive my solemn assurances, that you
do not incur the slightest danger. But what I have been hitherto afraid
to mention for fear of alarming you is, that now when we are within
sight of his retreat, for I can discover it through the twilight, I must
go no farther with you; you must proceed alone."

"Alone?--I dare not."

"You must," continued Ratcliffe; "I will remain here and wait for you."

"You will not, then, stir from this place," said Miss Vere "yet
the distance is so great, you could not hear me were I to cry for
assistance."

"Fear nothing," said her guide; "or observe, at least, the utmost
caution in stifling every expression of timidity. Remember that his
predominant and most harassing apprehension arises from a consciousness
of the hideousness of his appearance. Your path lies straight beside
yon half-fallen willow; keep the left side of it; the marsh lies on the
right. Farewell for a time. Remember the evil you are threatened with,
and let it overcome at once your fears and scruples."

"Mr. Ratcliffe," said Isabella, "farewell; if you have deceived one so
unfortunate as myself, you have for ever forfeited the fair character
for probity and honour to which I have trusted."

"On my life--on my soul," continued Ratcliffe, raising his voice as the
distance between them increased, "you are safe--perfectly safe."



CHAPTER XVI.

--'Twas time and griefs
That framed him thus: Time, with his fairer hand,
Offering the fortunes of his former days,
The former man may make him.--Bring us to him,
And chance it as it may.--OLD PLAY.

The sounds of Ratcliffe's voice had died on Isabella's ear; but as she
frequently looked back, it was some encouragement to her to discern his
form now darkening in the gloom. Ere, however, she went much farther,
she lost the object in the increasing shade. The last glimmer of the
twilight placed her before the hut of the Solitary. She twice extended
her hand to the door, and twice she withdrew it; and when she did at
length make the effort, the knock did not equal in violence the throb of
her own bosom. Her next effort was louder; her third was reiterated, for
the fear of not obtaining the protection from which Ratcliffe promised
so much, began to overpower the terrors of his presence from whom she
was to request it. At length, as she still received no answer, she
repeatedly called upon the Dwarf by his assumed name, and requested him
to answer and open to her.

"What miserable being is reduced," said the appalling voice of the
Solitary, "to seek refuge here? Go hence; when the heath-fowl need
shelter, they seek it not in the nest of the night-raven."

"I come to you, father," said Isabella, "in my hour of adversity, even
as you yourself commanded, when you promised your heart and your door
should be open to my distress; but I fear--"

"Ha!" said the Solitary, "then thou art Isabella Vere? Give me a token
that thou art she."

"I have brought you back the rose which you gave me; it has not had time
to fade ere the hard fate you foretold has come upon me!"

"And if thou hast thus redeemed thy pledge," said the Dwarf, "I will not
forfeit mine. The heart and the door that are shut against every other
earthly being, shall be open to thee and to thy sorrows."

She heard him move in his hut, and presently afterwards strike a light.
One by one, bolt and bar were then withdrawn, the heart of Isabella
throbbing higher as these obstacles to their meeting were successively
removed. The door opened, and the Solitary stood before her, his uncouth
form and features illuminated by the iron lamp which he held in his
hand.

"Enter, daughter of affliction," he said,--"enter the house of misery."

She entered, and observed, with a precaution which increased her
trepidation, that the Recluse's first act, after setting the lamp upon
the table, was to replace the numerous bolts which secured the door
of his hut. She shrunk as she heard the noise which accompanied this
ominous operation, yet remembered Ratcliffe's caution, and endeavoured
to suppress all appearance of apprehension. The light of the lamp was
weak and uncertain; but the Solitary, without taking immediate notice of
Isabella, otherwise than by motioning her to sit down on a small
settle beside the fireplace, made haste to kindle some dry furze, which
presently cast a blaze through the cottage. Wooden shelves, which bore
a few books, some bundles of dried herbs, and one or two wooden cups and
platters, were on one side of the fire; on the other were placed some
ordinary tools of field-labour, mingled with those used by mechanics.
Where the bed should have been, there was a wooden frame, strewed with
withered moss and rushes, the couch of the ascetic. The whole space of
the cottage did not exceed ten feet by six within the walls; and its
only furniture, besides what we have mentioned, was a table and two
stools formed of rough deals.

Within these narrow precincts Isabella now found herself enclosed with
a being, whose history had nothing to reassure her, and the fearful
conformation of whose hideous countenance inspired an almost
superstitious terror. He occupied the seat opposite to her, and dropping
his huge and shaggy eyebrows over his piercing black eyes, gazed at her
in silence, as if agitated by a variety of contending feelings. On the
other side sate Isabella, pale as death, her long hair uncurled by the
evening damps, and falling over her shoulders and breast, as the wet
streamers droop from the mast when the storm has passed away, and left
the vessel stranded on the beach. The Dwarf first broke the silence with
the sudden, abrupt, and alarming question,--"Woman, what evil fate has
brought thee hither?"

"My father's danger, and your own command," she replied faintly, but
firmly.

"And you hope for aid from me?"

"If you can bestow it," she replied, still in the same tone of mild
submission.

"And how should I possess that power?" continued the Dwarf, with a
bitter sneer; "Is mine the form of a redresser of wrongs? Is this the
castle in which one powerful enough to be sued to by a fair suppliant
is likely to hold his residence? I but mocked thee, girl, when I said I
would relieve thee."

"Then must I depart, and face my fate as I best may!"

"No!" said the Dwarf, rising and interposing between her and the door,
and motioning to her sternly to resume her seat--"No! you leave me
not in this way; we must have farther conference. Why should one being
desire aid of another? Why should not each be sufficient to itself? Look
round you--I, the most despised and most decrepit on Nature's common,
have required sympathy and help from no one. These stones are of my own
piling; these utensils I framed with my own hands; and with this"--and
he laid his hand with a fierce smile on the long dagger which he always
wore beneath his garment, and unsheathed it so far that the blade
glimmered clear in the fire-light--"with this," he pursued, as he thrust
the weapon back into the scabbard, "I can, if necessary, defend the
vital spark enclosed in this poor trunk, against the fairest and
strongest that shall threaten me with injury."

It was with difficulty Isabella refrained from screaming out aloud; but
she DID refrain.

"This," continued the Recluse, "is the life of nature, solitary,
self-sufficing, and independent. The wolf calls not the wolf to aid him
in forming his den; and the vulture invites not another to assist her in
striking down her prey."

"And when they are unable to procure themselves support," said Isabella,
judiciously thinking that he would be most accessible to argument
couched in his own metaphorical style, "what then is to befall them?"

"Let them starve, die, and be forgotten; it is the common lot of
humanity."

"It is the lot of the wild tribes of nature," said Isabella, "but
chiefly of those who are destined to support themselves by rapine, which
brooks no partner; but it is not the law of nature in general; even the
lower orders have confederacies for mutual defence. But mankind--the
race would perish did they cease to aid each other.--From the time
that the mother binds the child's head, till the moment that some kind
assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot
exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid, have right to
ask it of their fellow-mortals; no one who has the power of granting can
refuse it without guilt."

"And in this simple hope, poor maiden," said the Solitary, "thou hast
come into the desert, to seek one whose wish it were that the league
thou hast spoken of were broken for ever, and that, in very truth, the
whole race should perish? Wert thou not frightened?"

"Misery," said Isabella, firmly, "is superior to fear."

"Hast thou not heard it said in thy mortal world, that I have leagued
myself with other powers, deformed to the eye and malevolent to the
human race as myself? Hast thou not heard this--And dost thou seek my
cell at midnight?"

"The Being I worship supports me against such idle fears," said
Isabella; but the increasing agitation of her bosom belied the affected
courage which her words expressed.

"Ho! ho!" said the Dwarf, "thou vauntest thyself a philosopher? Yet,
shouldst thou not have thought of the danger of intrusting thyself,
young and beautiful, in the power of one so spited against humanity, as
to place his chief pleasure in defacing, destroying, and degrading her
fairest works?"

Isabella, much alarmed, continued to answer with firmness, "Whatever
injuries you may have sustained in the world, you are incapable of
revenging them on one who never wronged you, nor, wilfully, any other."

"Ay, but, maiden," he continued, his dark eyes flashing with an
expression of malignity which communicated itself to his wild and
distorted features, "revenge is the hungry wolf, which asks only to tear
flesh and lap blood. Think you the lamb's plea of innocence would be
listened to by him?"

"Man!" said Isabella, rising, and expressing herself with much dignity,
"I fear not the horrible ideas with which you would impress me. I cast
them from me with disdain. Be you mortal or fiend, you would not offer
injury to one who sought you as a suppliant in her utmost need. You
would not--you durst not."

"Thou say'st truly, maiden," rejoined the Solitary; "I dare not--I would
not. Begone to thy dwelling. Fear nothing with which they threaten thee.
Thou hast asked my protection--thou shalt find it effectual."

"But, father, this very night I have consented to wed the man that I
abhor, or I must put the seal to my father's ruin."

"This night?--at what hour?"

"Ere midnight."

"And twilight," said the Dwarf, "has already passed away. But fear
nothing, there is ample time to protect thee."

"And my father?" continued Isabella, in a suppliant tone.

"Thy father," replied the Dwarf, "has been, and is, my most bitter
enemy. But fear not; thy virtue shall save him. And now,