Page:Reading for winter evenings.pdf/16

16 me an allowance for my garden; and with that I was enabled to make another removal. It was to the place I now inhabit.

“When I came here, Sir, all this farm was a naked common, like that you crossed in coming. My Lord got an enclosure-bill for his part of it; and the steward divided it into different farms, and let it on improving leases to several tenants. A dreary spot, to be sure, it looked at first, enough to sink a man's heart to sit down upon it! I had a little unfinished cottage given me to live in; and, as I had nothing to stock a farm, I was for some years employed as head labourer and planter about the new enclosures. By very hard working and saving, together with a little help, I was at length enabled to take a small part of the ground I now occupy. I had various discouragements, from bad seasons and other accidents. One year the distemper carried off four out of seven cows that I kept; another year I lost two of my best horses. A high wind once almost entirely destroyed an orchard I had just planted, and blew down my biggest barn. But I was too much used to misfortune to be easily disheartened; and my way always was to set about repairing them in the best manner I could, and leave the rest to heaven. This method seems to have answered at last. I have now gone on many years in a course of continued prosperity, adding field to field, increasing my stock, and bringing up a numerous family with credit. My dear wife, who was my faithful partner through so much distress, continues to share my prosperous state; and few couples in the kingdom, I believe, have more cause to be thankful for their lot. This, Sir, is my history. You see it contains nothing very extraordinary; but if it impresses on the mind of this young gentleman the maxim, that patience and perseverance will scarcely fail of a good issue in the end, the time you have spent listening to it will not entirely be lost."

Mr. Carleton thanked the good former very heartily for the amusement and instruction he had afforded them, and took leave with many expressions of regard. Theodore and he walked home, talking, by the way, of what they had heard.

Next morning Mr. C., looking out of the window, saw Theodore hard at work in his garden. He was carefully disenterring his buried flowers, trimming and cleaning them, and planting them anew. He had got the gardener to cut a slip of the broken rose-tree, and set it in the middle to give it a chance for growing. By noon every thing was laid smooth and neat, and the bed was well filled. All its splendour, indeed, was gone for the present; but it seemed in a hopeful way to revive