This compendium summarizes the prefatory apparatus and the tale “The Black Dwarf” as presented in the supplied extract from Tales of My Landlord.

Preface and editorial frame
The work is offered under the fictional editorship of Jedediah Cleishbotham, schoolmaster and parish-clerk of Gandercleugh, who disclaims authorship of the Tales and explains their provenance: manuscripts left by the deceased Peter Pattieson, arranged for the press and supplemented by Cleishbotham’s explanatory proem. The editor defends his capacity for observation, rebuts anticipated criticism, and promises brief introductions to each tale.

Introduction to The Black Dwarf (historical model)
Scottish traditions and an actual hermit — David Ritchie of Tweeddale — supplied the author with a real-life prototype for the “Black Dwarf.” Ritchie, deformed from birth, withdrawn, half‑misunderstood and half‑feared, lived as a recluse on Manor Water; he combined a love of nature and gardening with querulous misanthropy and occasional acts of practical kindness. The biographical sketch traces Ritchie’s habits, character, local reception, and the origins of the Elshie figure.

Plot summary of “The Black Dwarf”
Set on the Border moors amid political ferment (the pre-Union/Jacobite tensions), the tale opens with two young sportsmen, Hobbie (Halbert) Elliot and Patrick (Earnscliff), encountering a singular dwarfish man, Elshender (Elshie), at Mucklestane‑Moor. Elshie, physically grotesque but mechanically and intellectually capable, builds a solid stone cottage and gardens, sustains eccentric misanthropy, yet occasionally renders advantageous aid — medical, horticultural, or financial — to local people.

Interwoven are local rivalries and plots: Westburnflat (a notorious reiver) abducts Grace Armstrong and later seizes a woman taken from Ellieslaw, Miss Isabella Vere, creating a cascade of reprisals — Hobbie’s homestead is burnt, neighbours gather arms, and Jacobite conspirators led by Ellieslaw, Mareschal and Sir Frederick Langley pursue their own designs. Miss Vere, in grave distress at her father’s political peril and a forced match with Sir Frederick, seeks Elshie’s help (through the discreet Ratcliffe). Elshie intervenes dramatically in the castle chapel at the proposed wedding, denounces Ellieslaw’s conduct, and halts the ceremony; his intercession, ambiguous in motive but effective, precipitates events that disperse the conspirators and expose many private complications.

Aftermath and fates
Elshie refuses to assimilate to society; he bestows discrete benefactions (notably providing Hobbie with means to reestablish his household) and disappears from his hermitage. The principal human outcomes are conventional: Earnscliff and Isabella are united and prosper; Hobbie and Grace marry and are comfortably provided for; Mareschal marries Lucy Ilderton and wanders abroad; Sir Frederick joins the 1715 rebellion and is later executed; Mr. Vere dies abroad in reduced circumstances; Ratcliffe remains the confidential manager of Sir Edward Mauley’s affairs and dies keeping the hermit’s secrets. Local folklore thereafter conflates Elshie with malignant moorland sprites — a mixed legacy of beneficence and dread.

Themes and tone
The tale juxtaposes rustic humour and social satire with Gothic and moral melancholy: a study of deformity and social exclusion, misanthropy restrained by occasional human tenderness, the border‑world’s rough codes (feud, hospitality, revenge), and the political turbulence that frames private destinies.