were touched with compunction even to tears, and all said they had never heard before a sermon of such power and efficacy. After mass Sir John Dalton invited him to dinner. When he entered into the manor he took his place in a ruined building, and would not enter the hall, according to the evangelical precept, "When thou art bidden to a wedding sit down in the lowest room, and when he that hath bidden thee shall see it he will say to thee, Friend, go up higher;" which was fulfilled in him, for the knight made him sit at table with his own sons. But he kept such silence at dinner that he did not speak one word; and when he had eaten sufficiently he rose before they took away the table and would have departed, but the knight told him this was contrary to custom, and made him sit down again. After dinner the knight had some private conversation with him, and being satisfied that he was not a madman, but really seemed to have the vocation to a hermit's life, he clothed him at his own cost in a hermit's habit, and retained him a long time in his own house, giving him a solitary chamber (_locum mansionis solitariæ_)[108] and providing him with all necessaries. Our hermit then gave himself up to ascetic discipline and a contemplative life. He wrote books; he counselled those who came to him. He did both at the same time; for one afternoon the lady of the house came to him with many other persons and found him writing very rapidly, and begged him to stop writing and speak some words of edification to them; and he began at once and continued to address them for two hours with admirable exhortations to cultivate virtue and to put away worldly vanities, and to increase the love of their hearts for God; but at the same time he went on writing as fast as before. He used to be so absorbed in prayer that his friends took off his torn cloak, and when it had been mended put it on him again, without his knowing it. Soon we hear of his having temptations like those which assailed St. Anthony, the devil tempting him in the form of a beautiful woman. He was specially desirous to help recluses and those who required spiritual consolation, and who were vexed by evil spirits. At length Lady Dalton died, and (whether as a result of this is not stated) the hermit left his cell and began to move from place to place. One time he came near the cell of Dame Margaret, the recluse of Anderby in Richmondshire, and was told that she was dumb and suffering from some strange disease, and went to her. And he sat down at the window of the house of the recluse,[109] and when they had eaten, the recluse felt a desire to sleep; and being oppressed with sleep her head fell towards the window at which St. Richard was reclined. And when she had slept a little, leaning somewhat on Richard, suddenly she was seized with a convulsion, and awoke with her power of speech restored.