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village through which we have been hurrying on the wings of the cold
north wind. The room was scantily furnished. There were two or three
very old-fashioned, rickety, straw-bottomed chairs, an oaken stool or
two, and a pine table. The hour hand of a wooden clock on the mantel
piece pointed to eleven. A fire of chips and brushwood was smouldering
on the hearth. In one corner of the room, near the fireplace, on a
heap of straw, covered with a blanket, two little boys lay sleeping in
each other's arms. Crouched near the table, her features dimly lighted
by a tallow candle, sat a woman advanced in life, clad in faded but
cleanly garments, whose hollow cheeks and sunken eye told a painful
tale of sorrow and destitution. Those sad eyes were fixed anxiously
and imploringly upon the stern, grim face of a hard-featured old man,
who, with hat pulled over his shaggy gray eyebrows, was standing,
resting on a stout staff, in the centre of the floor.

"So, you haven't got any money for me," said the old man, in the
harshest of all possible voices.

"Alas! no, Mr. Wurm--if I had I should have brought it to you long
ago," answered the poor woman. "I had raked and scraped a little
together--but the sickness of these poor children--poor William's
orphans--swept it all away--I haven't got a cent."

"So much the worse for you, Mrs. Redman," answered the old man,
harshly. "I've been easy with you--I've waited and waited--trusting
your promises. I can't wait any longer. I want the money."

"You want the money! Is it possible? Report speaks you rich."

"It's false--false!" said the old man, bitterly. "I'm poor--I'm
pinched. Ask the townspeople how I live. Do I look like a rich man?
No, no! I tell you I want my dues--and I will have 'em."

"I can't pay you," said the woman, sadly.

"Then you must abide the consequences!"

"What consequences?"

"I've got an execution--that's all," said the hardhearted landlord.

"An execution! what's that?"

"A warrant to take all your goods."

"My goods!" said the poor woman, looking round her with a melancholy
smile. "Why I have nothing but what few things you see in this room.
You surely wouldn't take those."

"I'll take all I can get."

"And leave me here with the bare walls."

"No, no! you walk out of this to-morrow."

"In the depth of winter! You cannot be so hardhearted."

"We shall see that."

"I care not for myself; but what is to become of these poor children?"

"Send 'em t