their professions, grew strangely cold and indifferent. He had
children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted. The former
turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted. He went
with the stream--it had ever been his failing, and he had not
courage sufficient to bear up against so many shocks--he had never
cared for himself, and the only being who had cared for him, in his
poverty and distress, was spared to him no longer. It was at this
period that he applied for parochial relief. Some kind-hearted man
who had known him in happier times, chanced to be churchwarden that
year, and through his interest he was appointed to his present
situation.

He is an old man now. Of the many who once crowded round him in
all the hollow friendship of boon-companionship, some have died,
some have fallen like himself, some have prospered--all have
forgotten him. Time and misfortune have mercifully been permitted
to impair his memory, and use has habituated him to his present
condition. Meek, uncomplaining, and zealous in the discharge of
his duties, he has been allowed to hold his situation long beyond
the usual period; and he will no doubt continue to hold it, until
infirmity renders him incapable, or death releases him. As the
grey-headed old man feebly paces up and down the sunny side of the
little court-yard between school hours, it would be difficult,
indeed, for the most intimate of his former friends to recognise
their once gay and happy associate, in the person of the Pauper
Schoolmaster.



CHAPTER II--THE CURATE. THE OLD LADY. THE HALF-PAY CAPTAIN