“Their father, sir,” continued she, “was a farmer here in the neighbourhood, and a sober industrious man he was; but nobody can help misfortunes: what with bad crops, and bad debts, which are worse, his affairs went to wreck, and both he and his wife died of broken hearts. And a sweet couple they were, sir; there was not a properer man to look on in the county than John Edwards, and so indeed were all the Edwardses.”
“What Edwardses?” cried the old soldier hastily.
“The Edwardses of South-hill, and a worthy family they were.”
“South-hill!” said he, in a languid voice, and fell back into the arms of the astonished Harley. The school-mistress ran for some water—and a smelling-bottle, with the assistance of which they soon recovered the unfortunate Edwards. He stared wildly for some time, then folding his orphan grandchildren in his arms,
“Oh! my children, my children,” he cried, “have I found you thus? My poor Jack, art thou gone? I thought thou shouldst have carried thy father’s grey hairs to the grave! and these little ones”—his tears choked his utterance, and he fell again on the necks of the children.
“My dear old man,” said Harley, “Providence has sent you to relieve them; it will bless me if I can be the means of assisting you.”
“Yes, indeed, sir,” answered the boy; “father, when he was a-dying, bade God bless us, and prayed that if grandfather lived he might send him to support us.”
“Where did they lay my boy?” said Edwards.
“In the Old Churchyard,” replied the woman, “hard by his mother.”
“I will show it you,” answered the boy, “for I have wept over it many a time when first I came amongst strange folks.”