Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 1).djvu/89

 of strength which seemed utterly inconsistent with his size and apparent deformity. Indeed, to judge from the difficulties he had already surmounted, he must have been of Herculean powers; for some of the stones he had succeeded in raising must apparently have required two men's strength to move them. Hobbie's suspicions began to revive, on seeing the preternatural strength he exerted.

"I am amaist persuaded it's the ghaist of a stane-mason—see siccan band-stanes as he's laid—An' it be a man, after a', I wonder what he wad take by the rood to build a march-dyke. There's ane sair wanted between Cringlehope and the Shaws.—Honest man, (raising his voice,) ye make good firm wark there."

The being whom he addressed raised his eyes with a ghastly stare, and getting up from his stooping posture, stood before them in all his native deformity. His head was of uncommon size, covered with a fell of shaggy hair, partly grizzled with