Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1830-1846, 1841-03-18
GENEROSITY REWARDED.
by MISS MILFORD.


village! This my reception from rela.
lives who owe me SO much = Thu.
thought, rather than said, IA poor looking
old man, as he stood leaning over the
gate Of n newly cleaned wheat field in The
bright, busting, busy harvest time. -
One exclaimed he, as his musings,
took tone OF passion which broke un-
consciously y into wOrds:-'One-yonder
portly landlady, forsooth, sitting ia her
bar, as she is pleased to call it--her bar,
quolha. In my young days it was the
little boarded parlor opening from the
tap room. A bar in the old Red Lion!
What shall we hear ofnext! One, be-
decked and bedizened, with gown like
rainbow, her iringed apron, and her
cap stuck out with lowers, sitting in her
bar, If that be its style and title, among 81
hei glasses and punch bowls, with bell
upon her table and a net oflemons dang
ling above her head; she, Miss Collins,
as she calls herself-she used to answer
to the name ofJeuny Collins twenty years
agone-reiused point blank to acknowl-
edge me! denied TO my face that she had
ever seen me! called me a cheat and an
impostor! wondered at my imprudcnce in
attempting to pass myself for her dear
uncle, Michael Norris threatened me
with the stocks and the round house, the
justice and the Jail Precious mink
She whom | rescued from drudgerv and
starvation, from living half shop woman,
half maid, with the stingy, termagent
clear starcher in Bedford Marsh-whom
i set up in that very Red Lion n!-perchcd
upon her throne, the arm chair in the bar !
purchased the lease, the furniture, the
good will!-paid her first years rent
stocked the cellars, clapped IA hundred
pound note in her hand And now that
| come home. old and lame, sick and
ragged, she rcvilos me rs yagabond
and an impostor, and tells me 10 be
thankful to he. Observation-Disclosures aud
compassion that she does not send for
the constables to carry me TO Jail -
LIAR that she is, base, ungrateiul, per-
jured liar for she knew me. saw
that she knew me,-ay, as well rs
knew her. She would be glad to be no
more altered in the years that have chan
ged her from slim girl of twenty Live
to bloa,cd woman of fve-and-iorty than
| in those same years, with all my grief!
Then her brother-laugh 1t mad
dens one to think OF their buseness =
her brother, whom | educated and ap-
prenticed, finding him money afterwards
10 put him into partnership Nth old Jones
the thriving linen-drsper He, indeed,
did not pretend to deny that | might be
his uncle:-but grant that | were, what
claim had | upon his charity more than
any other starving wretch What was
] to him? lie pitied me, heaven knew!
but what could expect from him :
Oh, the smooth-speaking, soit-spoken
knave with hIs pity and his charity !!
liypocrte in look and word His tone
was as gentle as if he had been bidding
me welcome to bed and board for my
whole life long. What fawning par
asite that would have been now if | had
accosted him like rich man. Well I!
there IL some virtue in these rags, since
they teach false tongues to speak truth.
Then came my cousin Anthony, whose
daughter portoned; whose runaway son
] clothed and sent to sea. And this
Anthony is now great mealman-a
rich miser, who could buy up half the
county. What said he? Why he was
poor himself--the scoundrel !--nobody
knew how poor, and had been forced to
make rule to give nothing to- begg ars;
ay, he called me a beggar! l might
60 to the Union, he said; that was the
fttest place for me. To the Union the
workhouse Oh the precious rascal :
The son Of my fathers brother-brought
up in my fathers house-worth hun
dred thousand pounds, and would have
sent me to the workhouse me, bis only
living kinsman Oh, this world tins
world Then-for was resolved 10
try them ALL soug lat out my old school
fellow, Nicholas Hume, the spend
thrift whom ! bailed in my young days,
when little richer than himself, and saved
from prison by paying his debts. What
was his gratitude Why he iorsoolh,
had never heard my name. Michael
Norris Who was Michael Norris -
Oh they knew me well enough twenty
years ago, when | returned from the
West Indies rich man, husband OF q
wealthy Creole, master Of hourlshng
plantations, TO visit my early haunis,
holp my poor relations i found them all
in distress, some way or o,her-and
shake hands with my old friends. No
body had forgotten then. But that |
have come back a ragged cripple, house
less and lr,endless"-And here the old
man paused, and hlted his wrstched hat
from his thin grey hairs, and passed his
tattered handkerchief over his lurrowed
brow, with an air which proved that he
was as much oppressed by mental suffer
ing, by Indignation, and disappointment,
as by the suitry heat Of an August noon.
! There ate none left now thought
old Michael to himself, as, exhausted
by his vehemence, he sunk into mlldcr
mood, none leit lor me to apply TO now;
except the three orphan children Of my
poor nephew William Leslie, the cousin
of these hard hearted Collinses, and
their mother; aud they, fear, are them
selves in great want and great trouble.
He, lately dead, after a series of un-
deserved mislortunes aud u long aud