“I hurried up inside, when I saw, lying on the floor, and partly covered with rags, my wife and child. They were what men call—dead!
“The appearance of the hut, and of the dead bodies, told me all. They had died of cold and hunger.
“I afterwards learnt, that my brother-in-law had died some time before; and that his wife immediately afterwards had gone away from the hovel to join some of her own relatives, who lived near the border.
“My poor wife had disposed of every thing that would sell for a penny; and had in vain endeavoured to find employment. The distance of the hut from any neighbour, had prevented her from receiving assistance in the last hours of her existence: for no one had been aware of the state of destitution to which she had been reduced.
“During the severe storm preceding her decease, she had probably lingered too long in the hut to be able to escape from it; and had miserably perished, as in a prison.
“Neither she, nor the child, could have been dead for any length of time. Their corpses were scarcely cold; and it was horrible for me to think, that I had been walking in the greatest haste throughout all that stormy night, and yet had arrived too late to rescue them!
“When sitting by their lifeless forms, in an agony of mind that words cannot describe, I was disturbed by the arrival of a stranger. It turned out to be the post carrier, who stepping inside the hut, handed me a letter. At a glance, I saw it was the letter I had sent from America—enclosing a draft for twenty-five pounds.
“Why has this letter not been delivered before?” I inquired of the man, speaking as calmly as I could.
“He apologised, by saying that the letter had only been in his possession four days; and that no one could expect him to come that distance in a snow storm, when he had no other letter to deliver on the way!
“I took up an old chair—the only article of furniture in the house—and knocked the man senseless to the floor.