Chapter 6

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,