Page:Tragical history of George Barnwell (1).pdf/15

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

15

folks neat in their dress, and precise in their discourse, but I soon found they were bigots to Calvinism. I passed my month of approbation, and with an aching heart signed my indcntures. When the business of the day was ended, my apartment was the kitchen, my companion an old woman, who was the servant, and her friend, a black cat. I might have employed myself by reading, but unfortunately her library consisted only of the Pilgrim's Progress, and a volume of two sermons, which at that time was little suited to my taste.

"I passed my time in this manner till my eighteenth year, when Mr Nutting was sent for one evening to visit a stranger, who had lately come to lodge at the next door, and was now at the point of death. This stranger was a man, who, having early in life obtained a considerable estate, had indulged in cvery pleasure that a vitiated taste and corrupt principles suggested. On a bed of sickness, his heart smote him; chance had led him to the house he was then in; the landlord was a strict Dissenter of the same persuasion as Mr. Nutting whose sanctity and upright conduct had been so frequently proclaimed in the hearing of the dying man, that he requested to see him, and to him made an ample confession of his crimcs, while he derived from his discourse a pleasing consolation. There was only one object living, for whom, in his present situation, he felt any concern; and that was a daughter, the fruit of an illicit amour in the west Indies. He had brought her up with the true affection of a father, devoted a considerable sum to her education and she now resided as a private hoarder in the same school where she had received her tuition, and such was the confidence he placed in Mr. Nutting, that he made a will by which he bcqucthed an estate in Hertfordshire, and a considerable property in the funds to his