Many the kind word and glass of ale I have
had at her house, and that's what makes me feel for her, you see. I
do what I can to make the journey easy to her, for it is a pull at her
years. God bless her! there is not a better body in this world; that I
will, say for her. When I was a boy, I used to be the playfellow in a
manner with Charley Burnet: a gay lad, sir, as ever you'd wish to see
in a summer's day, and the devil among the girls always, and that's been
the ruin of him; and as open-a-hearted fellow as ever lived. D----me!
I'd walk to the land's end to save him, if it were only for his mother's
sake, to say nothing of himself.'
'And can nothing be done?' asked the Duke.
'Why, you see, he is back in L s. d.; and, to make it up, the poor body
must sell her all, and he won't let her do it, and wrote a letter like a
prince (No room, sir), as fine a letter as ever you read (Hilloa, there!
What! are you asleep?)--as ever you read on a summer's day. I didn't
see it, but my mother told me it was as good as e'er a one of the old
gentleman's sermons. "Mother," said he, "my sins be upon my own head.
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