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6 A COTTAGE AND GARDJCN 
and good order that marked every part of 
this little domain, and some circumstances 
respecting the owner, which had been men- 
tioned to me by Dr. Burgh of York, made 
me anxious to obtain the history of the cot- < 
tager and his family. In the end of May, 
1797, I called there in my way from York ; 
but found the house and the gate of the 
garden locked. In the road to Tadcaster, 
however, I met his wife, laden with a bas- 
ket of provisions from the market, and 
engaged her to find her husband, who was 
at work about a mile off, and to send him 
to me at the inn at Tadcaster. When he 
arrived he very willingly gave me his his- 
tory, as follows — 
His name is Britton Abbot : his age sixty- 
liis history seven, and his wife's nearly the 
tiil'ibc ir.clo- same. At nine years old he had 
sure. gone'to work with a farmer; and 
be-ing- a steady careful lad, and a good la- 
bourer, particularly in what is called task- 
work,' he had managed so well, that before 
he was 2<2 years of age, he had accumu- 
lated near £.40. He then married and 
took a little farm at £'.30 a year ; but before 
the end of the second year he found it 
prudent, or rather necessary, to quit it ; 
having already exhausted,in his attempt to 
thrive upon it, almost all the little pro- 
perty that he had heaped together. He 
then fixed in a cottage at Poppleton ; where, 
with two acres of land, and his common 
