road which led to a large village, I was unacquainted with any further than where I then was. I sat down and rested myself a few minutes, and I had need of it. I concluded to keep on the main road, being confident that I should find a house in a less distance than on the other. I went on, often having to rest myself from mere faintness; I travelled, however, nearly a mile and a half without seeing the least sign of a house. At length, after much fatigue, I came to an old house, standing, as the Irishman said, out of doors. I made up to it and knocked at the door,—"Who's there?" cried an old woman from within. "A friend," I replied. "What do you want?" said she,—"I want to rest here to-night." "I cannot entertain you," said she, "I am alone and cannot let a stranger in." I told her I could not, and would not go any further. After some inquiring on her part and answering on mine, she condescended to admit me. She needed not to have feared me, for had she been a virgin, and as beautiful as Hellen, I should have had no inclination to have soiled her chastity that night, I had something else to employ my thoughts upon; however loath the old lady was to admit me, she used me extremely well, for she provided me with a good supper and a field bed before the fire, where I slept soundly till the morning, nor would she let me depart in the morning till I had breakfasted. While she was preparing my breakfast, I chopped off a backlog and put it on the fire, which was all the compensation she required, nor even that, it was my own will; we then parted with mutual thanks, and I proceeded on my journey.
On the evening before, the ground was quite clear of snow, but during the night, there fell nearly a foot in depth of light snow and I had to return to the road I had left the preceding evening. There was no track in the new fallen snow until I came to the cross road, when I found a footman had passed before me. He appeared, by his track and the mark of a cane he used, to be an old man. I could not help being diverted by observing at every few rods distance, that the poor fellow had slipped down on the ice, which was covered by the snow, when he would spatter the snow about like a horse. I soon overtook him, he was an old black man. When I came to the ferry it was frozen over, and covered with snow a
