Being visited by Isabel Vere and two of her friends, he told their fortunes, and he gave her a rose, with strict injunctions to bring it to him in her hour of adversity. As they rode homewards, their conversation implied that she loved young Patrick Earnscliff, but that Mr Vere intended her to marry Sir Frederick Langley. Another of the dwarf's visitors was Willie Graeme of Westburnflat, on his way to avenge an affront he had received from Hobbie Elliot, whose dog the next day killed one of the dwarf's goats, for which he warned him that retribution was at hand.