Instead of avoiding the old gentleman, as usual, he brushed up to him with a spirit he had never shown before, and presenting the two ragged boys, 'Surely, sir,' said he, 'you will not countenance that there ruffian, your steward, in oppressing the widow and fatherless?
On pretence of distraining for the rent of a cottage, he has robbed the mother of these and other poor infant-orphans of two cows, which afforded them their whole sustenance.

Shall you be concerned in tearing the hard-earned morsel from the mouth of indigence?
Shall your name, which has been so long mentioned as a blessing, be now detested as a curse by the poor, the helpless, and forlorn?
The father of these babes was once your gamekeeper, who died of a consumption caught in your service .-- You see they are almost naked--I found them plucking haws and sloes, in order to appease their hunger.

The wretched mother is starving in a cold cottage, distracted with the cries of other two infants, clamorous for food; and while her heart is bursting with anguish and despair, she invokes Heaven to avenge the widow's cause upon the head of her unrelenting landlord!' "This unexpected address brought tears into the eyes of the good old gentleman.

'Will Clarke,' said he to my father, 'how durst you abuse my authority at this rate?
You who know I have always been a protector, not an oppressor of the needy and unfortunate.

I charge you, go immediately and comfort this poor woman with immediate relief; instead of her own cows, let her have two of the best milch cows of my dairy; they shall graze in my parks in summer, and be foddered with my hay in winter .-- She shall sit rent-free for life; and I will take care of these her poor orphans.' "This was a very affecting scene.