This was the dwarf's secret resort, where no one ever disturbed him; for the Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills (of whom it was rumoured, he had come) held revel there, and people did not venture rashly.

The land about it, and a hut farther down the hill, belonged to Parpon; a legacy from the father of the young Seigneur.
It was all hills, gorges, rivers, and idle, murmuring pines.

Of a morning, mist floated into mist as far as eye could see, blue and grey and amethyst, a glamour of tints and velvety radiance.

The great hills waved into each other like a vast violet sea, and, in turn, the tiny earth-waves on each separate hill swelled into the larger harmony.

At the foot of a steep precipice was the whirlpool from which Parpon, at great risk, had rescued the father of De la Riviere, and had received this lonely region as his reward.