His father was a small yeoman, who, at his death, had left him, his only child, the cottage, with a small piece of ground behind it, and on this little property he had lived ever since.

About the age of twenty- five he had married an industrious young woman, by whom he had one daughter, who died before reaching years of womanhood.

His wife, however, had survived her daughter many years, and had been a great comfort to him, assisting him in his rural occupations; but, about four years before the present period, he had lost her, since which time he had lived alone, making himself as comfortable as he could; cultivating his ground, with the help of a lad from the neighbouring village, attending to his bees, and occasionally riding his donkey to market, and hearing the word of God, which he said he was sorry he could not read, twice a week regularly at the parish church.

Such was the old man's tale.
When he had finished speaking, he led me behind his house, and showed me his little domain.

It consisted of about two acres in admirable cultivation; a small portion of it formed a kitchen garden, while the rest was sown with four kinds of grain, wheat, barley, pease, and beans.
The air was full of ambrosial sweets, resembling those proceeding from an orange grove; a place, which though I had never seen at that time, I since have.