“I own,” answered Earnscliff; “you did little good to society by the last of these cures.  But, to balance the evil, there is my friend Hobbie, honest Hobbie of the Heugh-foot, your skill relieved him last winter in a fever that might have cost him his life.”

“Thus think the children of clay in their ignorance,” said:  the Dwarf, smiling maliciously, “and thus they speak in their folly.  Have you marked the young cub of a wild cat that has been domesticated, how sportive, how playful, how gentle,—­but trust him with your game, your lambs, your poultry, his inbred ferocity breaks forth; he gripes, tears, ravages, and devours.”

“Such is the animal’s instinct,” answered Earnscliff; “but what has that to do with Hobbie?”

“It is his emblem—­it is his picture,” retorted the Recluse.  “He is at present tame, quiet, and domesticated, for lack of opportunity to exercise his inborn propensities; but let the trumpet of war sound—­let the young blood-hound snuff blood, he will be as ferocious as the wildest of his Border ancestors that ever fired a helpless peasant’s abode.  Can you deny, that even at present he often urges you to take bloody revenge for an injury received when you were a boy?”—­Earnscliff started; the Recluse appeared not to observe his surprise, and proceeded—­“The trumpet will blow, the young blood-hound will lap blood, and I will laugh and say, For this I have preserved thee!” He paused, and continued,—­“Such are my cures;—­their object, their purpose, perpetuating the mass of misery, and playing even in this desert my part in the general tragedy.  Were you on your sick bed, I might, in compassion, send you a cup of poison.”

“I am much obliged to you, Elshie, and certainly shall not fail to consult you, with so comfortable a hope from your assistance.”

“Do not flatter yourself too far,” replied the Hermit, “with the hope that I will positively yield to the frailty of pity.  Why should I snatch a dupe, so well fitted to endure the miseries of life as you are, from the wretchedness which his own visions, and the villainy of the world, are preparing for him?  Why should I play the compassionate Indian, and, knocking out the brains of the captive with my tomahawk, at once spoil the three days’ amusement of my kindred tribe, at the very moment when the brands were lighted, the pincers heated, the cauldrons boiling, the knives sharpened, to tear, scorch, seethe, and scarify the intended victim?”

“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.”

“I spurn at the slavish and bestial doctrine,” said the Dwarf, his eyes kindling with insane fury,—­“I spurn at it, as worthy only of the beasts that perish; but I will waste no more words with you.”