Page:Original stories from real life 1796.pdf/120

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chief of a noble family.  These reflections entirely engroſſed my mind, when the ſound of a harp reached my ears. Never was any thing more opportune, the national muſic ſeemed to give reality to the pictures which my imagination had been drawing. I liſtened awhile, and then trying to trace the pleaſing ſound, diſcovered, after a ſhort ſearch, a little hut, rudely built. The walls of an old tower ſupported part of the thatch, which ſcarcely kept out the rain, and the two other ſides were ſtones cemented, or rather plaiſtered together, by mud and clay.

I entered, and beheld an old man, ſitting by a few looſe ſticks, which blazed on the hearth; and a young woman, with one child at her breaſt, ſucking, and another on her knee: near them ſtood a cow and her calf. The man had been playing on the harp; he roſe when he ſaw me, and offered his chair, the only one in the room, and ſat down on a large cheſt in the chimney-corner. When the door was ſhut, all the light that was admitted came through the

hole,