Wooden shelves, which bore a few books, some bundles of dried herbs, and one or two wooden cups and platters, were on one side of the fire; on the other were placed some ordinary tools of field-labour, mingled with those used by mechanics.
Where the bed should have been, there was a wooden frame, strewed with withered moss and rushes, the couch of the ascetic.

The whole space of the cottage did not exceed ten feet by six within the walls; and its only furniture, besides what we have mentioned, was a table and two stools formed of rough deals.
Within these narrow precincts Isabella now found herself enclosed with a being, whose history had nothing to reassure her, and the fearful conformation of whose hideous countenance inspired an almost superstitious terror.

He occupied the seat opposite to her, and dropping his huge and shaggy eyebrows over his piercing black eyes, gazed at her in silence, as if agitated by a variety of contending feelings.

On the other side sate Isabella, pale as death, her long hair uncurled by the evening damps, and falling over her shoulders and breast, as the wet streamers droop from the mast when the storm has passed away, and left the vessel stranded on the beach.

The Dwarf first broke the silence with the sudden, abrupt, and alarming question,--"Woman, what evil fate has brought thee hither ?" "My father's danger, and your own command," she replied faintly, but firmly.
"And you hope for aid from me ?" "If you can bestow it," she replied, still in the same tone of mild submission.
"And how should I possess that power ?" continued the Dwarf, with a bitter sneer; "Is mine the form of a redresser of wrongs?
Is this the castle in which one powerful enough to be sued to by a fair suppliant is likely to hold his residence?
I but mocked thee, girl, when I said I would relieve thee." "Then must I depart, and face my fate as I best may!" "No!" said the Dwarf, rising and interposing between her and the door, and motioning to her sternly to resume her seat--"No! you leave me not in this way; we must have farther conference.