WILLIAM COBBETT. 91 



home-spun, to be where I should never behold the supple 

 crouch of servility, and never hear the hectoring voice of 

 authority again; and, on the lonely banks of this branch- 

 covered creek, which contained (she out of the question) 

 everything congenial to my taste and dear to my heart, I, 

 unapplauded, unfeared, unenvied, and uncalumniated, should 

 have lived and died.' 



The fair cause of this 'serious sin,' the little brunette in 

 England, had first been seen some years before in America, 

 and after this charming manner : ' When I first saw my wife, 

 she was thirteen years old, and I was within about a month 

 of twenty-one. She was the daughter of a sergeant of artillery, 

 and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both 

 stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province 

 of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for 

 about an hour, in company with others, and I made up my 

 mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought 

 her beautiful, is certain ; for that, I had always said, should 

 be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I 

 deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of which I have 

 said so much, and which has been by far the greatest blessing 

 of my life. It was now dead of winter, and, of course, the 

 snow several feet deep on the gi'ound, and the weather 

 piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my morn- 

 ing's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a 

 hill, at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three 

 mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation 

 to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in 

 my walk ; and our road lay by the house of her father and 

 mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow 

 scrubbing out a washing-tub. " That's the girl for me," said I, 



