The scene within the cottage presented a strange and painful contrast to the interior of most of the comfortable houses in the flourishing village through which we have been hurrying on the wings of the cold north wind. The room was scantily furnished. There were two or three very old-fashioned, rickety, straw-bottomed chairs, an oaken stool or two, and a pine table. The hour hand of a wooden clock on the mantel piece pointed to eleven. A fire of chips and brushwood was smouldering on the hearth. In one corner of the room, near the fireplace, on a heap of straw, covered with a blanket, two little boys lay sleeping in each other's arms. Crouched near the table, her features dimly lighted by a tallow candle, sat a woman advanced in life, clad in faded but cleanly garments, whose hollow cheeks and sunken eye told a painful tale of sorrow and destitution. Those sad eyes were fixed anxiously and imploringly upon the stern, grim face of a hard-featured old man, who, with hat pulled over his shaggy gray eyebrows, was standing, resting on a stout staff, in the centre of the floor.
"So, you haven't got any money for me," said the old man, in the harshest of all possible voices.
"Alas! no, Mr. Wurm—if I had I should have brought it to you long ago," answered the poor woman. "I had raked and scraped a little together—but the sickness of these poor children—poor William's orphans—swept it all away—I haven't got a cent."
"So much the worse for you, Mrs. Redman," answered the old man, harshly. "I've been easy with you—I've waited and waited—trusting your promises. I can't wait any longer. I want the money."
"You want the money! Is it possible? Report speaks you rich."
"It's false—false!" said the old man, bitterly. "I'm poor—I'm pinched. Ask the townspeople how I live. Do I look like a rich man? No, no! I tell you I want my dues—and I will have 'em."
"I can't pay you," said the woman, sadly.
"Then you must abide the consequences!"
"What consequences?"
"I've got an execution—that's all," said the hardhearted landlord.