The value of each was the same, _viz_., five pounds _per annum_: but the cure of Seathwaite having a cottage attached to it, as he wished to marry, he chose it in preference.

The young person on whom his affections were fixed, though in the condition of a domestic servant, had given promise, by her serious and modest deportment, and by her virtuous dispositions, that she was worthy to become the helpmate of a man entering upon a plan of life such as he had marked out for himself.
By her frugality she had stored up a small sum of money, with which they began house-keeping.

In 1735 or 1736, he entered upon his curacy; and, nineteen years afterwards, his situation is thus described, in some letters to be found in the _Annual Register_ for 1760, from which the following is extracted:-- 'To MR.

----.
'Coniston, July 26, 1754.
'Sir,--I was the other day upon a party of pleasure, about five or six miles from this place, where I met with a very striking object, and of a nature not very common.

Going into a clergyman's house (of whom I had frequently heard), I found him sitting at the head of a long square table, such as is commonly used in this country by the lower class of people, dressed in a coarse blue frock, trimmed with black horn buttons; a checked shirt, a leathern strap about his neck for a stock, a coarse apron, and a pair of great wooden-soled shoes plated with iron to preserve them (what we call clogs in these parts), with a child upon his knee, eating his breakfast; his wife, and the remainder of his children, were some of them employed in waiting upon each other, the rest in teasing and spinning wool, at which trade he is a great proficient; and moreover, when it is made ready for sale, will lay it, by sixteen or thirty-two pounds' weight, upon his back, and on foot, seven or eight miles, will carry it to the market, even in the depth of winter.