The Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott (1816)

This smaller piece was the first emanation of a series of stories called The Tales of My Landlord. There is a definite feeling of rusticity to its first part, where Scott was perhaps slowly making his way to a country tale with supernatural elements; I wonder if something Gothic was on the hustings. The dwarf arrives on Mucklestane Moor and without any leave sets up his stony habitation in an eerie spot, encountering wondering rough locals and spraying all comers with his misanthropic but intelligent barbs. After a contretemps in which Hobbie of Heughfoot's homestead is burnt to ashes and his girl is kidnapped by a ruffian and eventually returned to him unharmed, the story is lifted to more traditional Scott territory. In a deft twist he turns to the parallel story of the Veres and the Mauleys and a planned Jacobite uprising. Isabella Vere is betrothed against her will to Sir Frederick Langley, one of the uprisers, by her father. It is only through the interpolation of the Black Dwarf, who had befriended her earlier in the piece, that this dastardly union is avoided. It is revealed that the Dwarf is the long-lost Sir Edward Mauley, thought dead, and Isabella's good sense has awakened his abuse-hardened heart. This piece is lifted by Scott's insight into the mind of the dwarf; his humanity, and the broader comment about our society's response to the physically unbeautiful and the misery it causes, lend texture and emotion to a simple story.