Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 1).djvu/359

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THE BLACK DWARF.
349

in the chapel over the tomb of your mother. Mr Ratcliffe, who at this time had done me the honour to make my house his own, had the complaisance to introduce him secretly into the chapel. The consequence, as he informs me, was a frenzy of several hours, during which he fled into the neighbouring moors, in one of the wildest spots of which he chose, when he was somewhat recovered, to fix his mansion, and set up for a sort of country empiric, a character, which, even in his best days, he was fond of assuming. It is remarkable, that, instead of informing me of these circumstances that I might have had the relative of my late wife taken such care of as his calamitous condition required, Mr Ratcliffe seems to have had such culpable indulgence for his irregular plans as to promise and even swear secrecy concerning them. He visited Sir Edward often, and assisted in the fantastic task he had taken upon him of constructing a hermitage. Nothing they appear to