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 by, that belongs to me. The everseeroverseer [sic] of the parish who was a crabbed sort of a fellow, and a friend of the steward, was for sending them to the workhouse. But ‘No,’ says I; ‘hold neighbour Bruing, while my roof can give them shelter, and lean provide them with a meal to eke out the earnings of their own industry.—And you must know. Sir,’ said he, with a significant nod, ‘I am pretty warm they shall never endure the wants and hardships of a prison.’ ‘For what,’ said I,’ is your workhouse but a dungeon, where the poor eat little and labour hard?’ ‘ But, sir,’ continued the landlord, ‘not only I, but the whole village was against their going there; and the inhabitants all cheerfully spare a little towards the family’s support; nay, even the labouring cottager, out of his earnings, throws in his mite.’

‘And what,’ enquired Trueman, ‘is the amount of the sum for which the unfortunate man is now confined?’

‘The whole debt, replied the landlord, ‘I am told is about three hundred pounds—a sum by much too large for the inhabitants of our parish to raise without injuring themselves; or, depend upon it, he would soon be snatched from the gripe of the law.’

Every particular which related to this worthy man, Trueman enquired with an earnestness that displayed the philantrophicphilanthropic [sic] sentiments of his mind,