being received assistance occasionally from such travellers as crossed
the moor by chance, as well as from several who went from curiosity to
visit his works. It was, indeed, impossible to see a human creature, so
unfitted, at first sight, for hard labour, toiling with such unremitting
assiduity, without stopping a few minutes to aid him in his task; and,
as no one of his occasional assistants was acquainted with the degree
of help which the Dwarf had received from others, the celerity of his
progress lost none of its marvels in their eyes. The strong and compact
appearance of the cottage, formed in so very short a space, and by such
a being, and the superior skill which he displayed in mechanics, and in
other arts, gave suspicion to the surrounding neighbours. They insisted,
that, if he was not a phantom,--an opinion which was now
abandoned, since he plainly appeared a being of blood and bone with
themselves,--yet he must be in close league with the invisible world,
and have chosen that sequestered spot to carry on his communication with
them undisturbed. They insisted, though in a different sense from the
philosopher's application of the phrase, that he was never less alone
than when alone; and that from the heights which commanded the moor at
a distance, passengers often discovered a person at work along with
this dweller of the desert, who regularly disappeared as soon as they
approached closer to the cottage. Such a figure was also occasionally
seen sitting beside him at the door, walking with him in the moor, or
assisting him in fetching water from his fountain. Earnscliff explained
this phenomenon by supposing it to be the Dwarf's shadow.

"Deil a shadow has he," replied Hobbie Elliot, who was a strenuous
defender of the general opinion; "he's ower far in wi' the Auld Ane to
have a shadow. Besides," he argued more logically, "wha ever heard of a
shadow that cam between a body and the sun? and this thing, be it what
it will, is thinner and taller than the body himsell, and has been seen