vail upon him to accept anything beyond the simplest
necessaries, although much more was offered by Earnscliff out of
charity, and by his more superstitious neighbours from other motives.
The benefits of these last he repaid by advice, when consulted (as at
length he slowly was) on their diseases, or those of their cattle. He
often furnished them with medicines also, and seemed possessed, not only
of such as were the produce of the country, but of foreign drugs.
He gave these persons to understand, that his name was Elshender the
Recluse; but his popular epithet soon came to be Canny Elshie, or the
Wise Wight of Mucklestane-Moor. Some extended their queries beyond their
bodily complaints, and requested advice upon other matters, which he
delivered with an oracular shrewdness that greatly confirmed the opinion
of his possessing preternatural skill. The querists usually left some
offering upon a stone, at a distance from his dwelling; if it was money,
or any article which did not suit him to accept, he either threw it
away, or suffered it to remain where it was without making use of it.
On all occasions his manners were rude and unsocial; and his words, in
number, just sufficient to express his meaning as briefly as possible,
and he shunned all communication that went a syllable beyond the matter
in hand. When winter had passed away, and his garden began to afford
him herbs and vegetables, he confined himself almost entirely to those
articles of food. He accepted, notwithstanding, a pair of she-goats from
Earnscliff, which fed on the moor, and supplied him with milk.

When Earnscliff found his gift had been received, he soon afterwards
paid the hermit a visit. The old man was seated an a broad flat stone
near his garden door, which was the seat of science he usually occupied
when disposed to receive his patients or clients. The inside of his hut,
and that of his garden, he kept as sacred from human intrusion as the
natives of Otaheite do their Morai;--apparently he would have deemed it
polluted by the step of any human being. When he shut himself up in his
habitation, no entreaty could prevail upon him to make himself visible,
or to give audience to any one whomsoever.

Earnscliff had been fishing in a small river at some distance. He had
his rod in his hand, and his basket, filled with trout, at his shoulder.
He sate down upon a stone nearly opposite to the Dwarf who, familiarized
with his presence, took no farther notic