“O Lord!” exclaimed the landlord, to himself, with a frightened face, while the dwarf “grinned horribly a ghastly smile” from ear to ear. “So much, my good sir, that I would strongly advise you not to go near it, unless you wish to catch something worse than the plague. There have been others--our worthy host, there, whose teeth, you may perceive, are chattering in his head, can tell you about those that have tried the trick, and--” “Well?” said Sir Norman, curiously. “And have never returned to tell what they found!” concluded the little monster, with a diabolical leer. And as the landlord fell, gray and gasping, back in his seat, he broke out into a loud and hyena-like laugh. “My dear little friend,” said Sir Norman, staring at him in displeased wonder, “don't laugh, if you can help it. You are unprepossessing enough at best, but when you laugh, you look like the very (a downward gesture) himself!” Unheeding this advice, the dwarf broke again into an unearthly cachinnation, that frightened the landlord nearly into fits, and seriously discomposed the nervous system even of Sir Norman himself. Then, grinning like a baboon, and still transfixing our puissant young knight with the same tiger-like and unpleasant glare, he nodded a farewell; and in this fashion, grinning, and nodding, and backing, he got to the door, and concluding the interesting performance with a third hoarse and hideous laugh, disappeared in the darkness. For fully ten minutes after he was gone, the young man kept his eyes blankly fixed on the door, with a vague impression that he was suffering from an attack of nightmare; for it seemed impossible that anything so preposterously ugly as that dwarf could exist out of one. A deep groan from the landlord, however, convinced him that it was no disagreeable midnight vision, but a brawny reality; and turning to that individual, he found him gasping, in the last degree of terror, behind the counter. “Now, who in the name of all the demons out of Hades may that ugly abortion be?” inquired Sir Norman. “O Lord! be merciful! sir, it's Caliban; and the only wonder is, he did not leave you a bleeding corpse at his feet!” “I should like to see him try it. Perhaps he would have found that is a game two can play at! Where does he come from and who is he!” The landlord leaned over the counter, and placed a very pale and startled face close to Sir Norman's. “That's just what I wanted to tell you, sir, but I was afraid to speak before him. I think he lives up in that same old ruin you were inquiring about--at least, he is often seen hanging around there; but people are too much afraid of him to ask him any questions. Ah, sir, it's a strange place, that ruin, and there be strange stories afloat about it,” said the man, with a portentious shake of the head. “What are they?” inquired Sir Norman. “I should particularly like to know.”