Page:Way to wealth, or, Poor Richard's maxims improved, &c..pdf/22

Rh country;— and my first steps were almost inveluntarilyinvoluntarily [sic] directed to the windmill. As I climbed the hill my steps had all the alacrity of one who expects a pleasure; and a slight exertion brought me to the door of the once happy cottage. It was closed. The little garden was covered with weeds;— the honeysuckle that was so neatly trailed round the porch almost choked the entrance it was meant to adorn;— the windows were broken;— there was no sound of life about the habitation. I hurried to the windmill. Its sails were idle;— the crazy fabric shivered in the gale. I felt a foreboding of evil, and I descended the hill with steps infinitely slower than those which had carried me to its summit.

I could not pass through the village without making an anxious inquiry about the fortunes of John Anderson, the miller. I rested at the small public-house. The landlord was of a communicative temper; and I therefore lost little time in leading him to the subject of my curiosity. Immediately that I mentioned the name of the young man, the kind host exclaimed, with an unaffected sigh, “Ah, sir, that's a very sad story.” At the instant a female, in decent mourning, carrying a little child, passed the window. I looked in her face— it was pale and shrivelled— not a feature called up an old recollectienrecollection [sic]. The landlord shrunk back;— and drawing me towards him in a hurried whisper, said, “That is John Anderson’s widow— she lives only for her child— and will soon join him in the church-yard yonder.”

I saw in thothe [sic] tone and manner with which these words wore pronounced that there was something extraordinary in the circumstances of the young miller’s death. The master of the public-house