The pastor was in bed--the boisterous wind rattled clown the chimney and
shook the ill-fitting casement in its rotting frame. The clothes he had
last worn were thrown carelessly about, unsmoothed, unbrushed; the scanty
articles of furniture were out of their proper places; slovenly
discomfort marked the death-chamber. And by the bedside stood a
neighbouring clergyman, a stout, rustic, homely, thoroughly Welsh priest,
who might have sat for the portrait of Parson Adams.

"Here's a letter for you," said the visitor.

"For me!" echoed Caleb, feebly. "Ah--well--is it not very dark, or are
my eyes failing?" The clergyman and the servant drew aside the curtains
and propped the sick man up: he read as follows, slowly, and with
difficulty:

"DEAR, CALEB,--At last I can do something for you. A friend of mine has
a living in his gift just vacant, worth, I understand, from three to four
hundred a year: pleasant neighbourhood--small parish. And my friend
keeps the hounds!--just the thing for you. He is, however, a very
particular sort of person--wants a companion, and has a horror of
anything evangelical; wishes, therefore, to see you before he decides.
If you can meet me in London, some day next month, I'll present you to
him, and I have no doubt it will be settled. You must think it strange I
never wrote to you since we parted, but you know I never was a very good
correspondent; and as I had nothing to communicate advantageous to you I
thought it a sort of insult to enlarge on my own happiness, and so forth.
All I shall say on that score is, that I've sown my wild oats; and that
you may take my word for it, there's nothing that can make a man know how
large, the heart is, and how little the world, till he comes home