Chapter 3 - Page 2

personal deformity. The young sportsman
hailed this extraordinary appearance twice, without receiving any
answer, or attending to the pinches by which his companion endeavoured
to intimate that their best course was to walk on, without giving
farther disturbance to a being of such singular and preternatural
exterior. To the third repeated demand of "Who are you? What do you here
at this hour of night?"--a voice replied, whose shrill, uncouth, and
dissonant tones made Elliot step two paces back, and startled even his
companion, "Pass on your way, and ask nought at them that ask nought at
you."

"What do you do here so far from shelter? Are you benighted on your
journey? Will you follow us home ('God forbid!' ejaculated Hobbie
Elliot, involuntarily), and I will give you a lodging?"

"I would sooner lodge by mysell in the deepest of the Tarras-flow,"
again whispered Hobbie.

"Pass on your way," rejoined the figure, the harsh tones of his voice
still more exalted by passion. "I want not your guidance--I want not
your lodging--it is five years since my head was under a human roof, and
I trust it was for the last time."

"He is mad," said Earnscliff.

"He has a look of auld Humphrey Ettercap, the tinkler, that perished
in this very moss about five years syne," answered his superstitious
companion; "but Humphrey wasna that awfu' big in the bouk."

"Pass on your way," reiterated the object of their curiosity, "the
breath of your human bodies poisons the air around me--the sound of pour
human voices goes through my ears like sharp bodkins."

"Lord safe us!" whispered Hobbie, "that the dead should bear sie fearfu'
ill-will to the living!--his saul maun be in a puir way, I'm jealous."

"Come, my friend," said Earnscliff, "you seem to suffer under some
strong affliction; common humanity will not allow us to leave you here."

"Common humanity!" exclaimed the being, with a scornful laugh that
sounded like a shriek, "where got ye that catch-word--that noose for
woodcocks--that common disguise for man-traps--that bait which the
wretched idiot who swallows, will soon find covers a hook with barbs ten
times sharper than those you lay for the animals which you murder for
your luxury!"

"I tell you, my friend," again replied Earnscliff, "you are incapable of
judging of your own situation--you will perish in this wilderness, and
we must, in compassion, force you along with us."

"I'll hae neither hand nor foot in't," said Hobbie; "let the ghaist take
his ain way, for God's sake!"