d his cook, who gave him three daughters and
one son, to whom the estate went, but the ring and the letter came
to the Chelmsfords. The letter, which I afterwards saw, was a most
curious thing, both as to composition and spelling and chirography,
for his lordship was no scholar. And since the letter is but short,
I may perhaps as well give it entire. After this wise it ran, being
addressed to Col. John Chelmsford, who was his cousin, though
considerably younger.

"Dear Cousin.--(So wrote my Lord Ealing.) When this reaches you
I shall be laid in silent tomb, where, perchance, I shall be more at
peace than I have ever ben in a wurld, which either fitted me not,
or I did not fit. At all odds there was a sore misfit betwixt us in
some way. If it was the blam of the world, good ridance and parden,
if it was my blam, let them which made me come to acount fo'rt. I
send herewith my great emruld ringg, with dimends which I suspect
hath been the means of sending an inosent man into slavery. I had a
mind some years agone to wed with Caterin Cavendish, and she bein a
hard made to approche, having ever a stiff turn of the sholder
toward me, though I knew not why, I was not willin to resk my sute
by word of mouth, nor having never a gift in writin by letter. And
so, knowin that mades like well such things, I bethought me of my
emruld ring, and on the night of the ball, I being upstair in to lay
off my hatt and cloak, stole privily into Catherin's chamber, she
being a-dancin below, and I laid the ring on her dresing table,
thinkin that she would see it when she entered, and know it for a
love token.

"And then I went myself below, and Caterin, she would have none of
me, and made up such a face of ice when I approached, that methought
I had maybe wasted my emruld ring. So after a little up the stare I
stole, and the ring was not where I had put it. Then thinkin that
the ring had been stole, and I had neither that nor the made, I
raised a great hue and cry, and demanded that a search be maid, and
the ring was found on Master Wingfield, and he was therefor
transported, and I had my ring again, and myself knew not the true
fact of the case until a year agone. Then feeling that I had not
much longer to live, I writ this, thinking that Master Wingfield was
in a rich country, and not in sufferin, and a few months more would
make not much odds to him. The facs of the case, cousin, I knew from
Madam Cavendish's old servant woman Charlotte w