Page:Beautiful and interesting account of the shepherd of Salisbury Plain.pdf/13

15 at this seasonable and unexpected relief, and I do assure you, my wife was more thankful when I shewed her the than I dare say some of your  people are when they get a hundred pounds.

Mr Johnson's heart smote him when heard such a value set upon a shilling; surely, said he to himself, I will  waste another; but he said nothing to the Shepherd, who thus pursued his story.

Next morning, before I went out, I part of the money to buy a little, and brown sugar to put into the water gruel; which, you know, Sir, made it nice and nourishing. I went out to cleave wood in a farm yard, for was no standing out on the plain after such a snow as had fallen in the night. When I came back at night, my wife fell a crying as soon as she saw me. This I own I thought but a bad return for the blessings she had so lately received and so I told her.

O! said, she, it is too much, we are too