It was not the action of an ordinary beggar, and my curiosity was strongly excited by it. I desired her to follow me to the house of a friend hard by, whose beneficence I have often had occasion to know. When she arrived there, she was so fatigued and worn out, that it was not till after some means used to restore her, that she was able to give us an account of her misfortunes. Her name, she told us, was Collins; the place of her birth one of the northern counties of England. Her father, who had died several years ago, left her remaining parent with the charge of her, then a child, and one brother, a lad of seventeen. By his industry, however, joined to that of her mother, they were tolerably supported, their father having died possessed of a small farm, with the right of pasturage on an adjoining common, from which they obtained a decent livelihood: that, last summer, her brother having become acquainted with a recruiting serjeant, who was quartered in a neighbouring village, was by him enticed to list as a soldier, and soon after was marched off, along with some other recruits, to join his regiment that this, she believed, broke her mother's heart, for that she had never afterwards had a day's health, and, at length, had died about three weeks ago that, immediately after her death, the steward employed by the squire of whom their farm was held, took possession of every thing for the arrears of their rent: that, as she heard her brother's regiment was in Scotland when he enlisted, she had wandered hither in quest of him, as she had no other relation in the world to own her! But she found, on arriving here, that the regiment had been embarked several months before, and was gone a great way off, she could not tell whither. "This news," said she, " laid hold of my heart " and I have had something wrong here," putting her hand to her bosom, "ever since. I got a bed |
