--BEAUMONT
As the season advanced, the weather became more genial, and the Recluse
was more frequently found occupying the broad flat stone in the front of
his mansion. As he sate there one day, about the hour of noon, a party
of gentlemen and ladies, well mounted, and numerously attended, swept
across the heath at some distance from his dwelling. Dogs, hawks, and
led-horses swelled the retinue, and the air resounded at intervals
with the cheer of the hunters, and the sound of horns blown by the
attendants. The Recluse was about to retire into his mansion at
the sight of a train so joyous, when three young ladies, with their
attendants, who had made a circuit, and detached themselves from their
party, in order to gratify their curiosity by a sight of the Wise Wight
of Mucklestane-Moor, came suddenly up, ere he could effect his purpose.
The first shrieked, and put her hands before her eyes, at sight of an
object so unusually deformed. The second, with a hysterical giggle,
which she intended should disguise her terrors, asked the Recluse,
whether he could tell their fortune.
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