This Seemed To Have Something In It That Suited Me, And Therefore I
Boldly Went Into It; And When In I Did Not Immediately, As
Heretofore, Inquire If I Could Stay All Night There, But Asked For A
Pint Of Ale.
I own I felt myself disheartened by their calling me
nothing but master, and by their showing me into the kitchen, where
the landlady was sitting at a table and complaining much of the
toothache.
The compassion I expressed for her on this account, as a
stranger, seemed soon to recommend me to her favour, and she herself
asked me if I would not stay the night there? To this I most
readily assented; and thus I was again happy in a lodging for
another night.
The company I here met with consisted of a female chimney-sweeper
and her children, who, on my sitting down in the kitchen, soon drank
to my health, and began a conversation with me and the landlady.
She related to us her history, which I am not ashamed to own I
thought not uninteresting. She had married early, but had the hard
luck to be soon deprived of her husband, by his being pressed as a
soldier. She neither saw nor heard of him for many years, so
concluded he was dead. Thus destitute, she lived seven years as a
servant in Ireland, without any one's knowing that she was married.
During this time her husband, who was a chimney-sweeper, came back
to England and settled at Lichfield, resumed his old trade, and did
well in it.
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