"
"I know no cure for earthly trouble," returned the Dwarf "or, if I
did, why should I help others, when none hath aided me? Have I not lost
wealth, that would have bought all thy barren hills a hundred times
over? rank, to which thine is as that of a peasant? society, where
there was an interchange of all that was amiable--of all that was
intellectual? Have I not lost all this? Am I not residing here, the
veriest outcast on the face of Nature, in the most hideous and most
solitary of her retreats, myself more hideous than all that is around
me? And why should other worms complain to me when they are trodden on,
since I am myself lying crushed and writhing under the chariot-wheel?"
"Ye may have lost all this," answered Hobbie, in the bitterness of
emotion; "land and friends, goods and gear; ye may hae lost them
a',--but ye ne'er can hae sae sair a heart as mine, for ye ne'er lost
nae Grace Armstrong. And now my last hopes are gane, and I shall ne'er
see her mair."
This he said in the tone of deepest emotion--and there followed a long
pause, for the mention of his bride's name had overcome the more angry
and irritable feelings of poor Hobbie.
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