Joseph himself went out to see him, and not wishing his noble visitors to be disturbed by such a person, he closed the door after him, and stood erect before the beggar. A pale, thin, haggard, miserable-looking creature, without shoes, or woollen hose, with tattered rags, and torn skin, with a countenance, the lines of agony, more than of age, seemed to have shrivelled into deformity, stood before him. 'What want you with me?' asked the old woodman. 'Pity!' replied the beggar. 'In what shape: in money, food, or raiment?' 'In neither.' 'In what, then?' 'In a coffin.' Old Sage started, for in verity there appeared more truth in the man's application for this thing, than in the hundreds of petitions which beggars usually made. It made the old man feel conscious, likewise, that there was something more earnest in this beggar's petition, than if he had sought alms at his hand. It is not often that a man asks for his own coffin, even if he be too poor to purchase one. The very novelty of the thing made the hearer say, and that without any unfeeling intention, 'You must come into the shop, to my son,' and he walked with him. Scarcely could the beggar totter to the little out-house where the son, who was soon to be the successor of Joseph Sage, was at work. 'I have a singular customer here, my son; a beggar applying to me for his coffin.' 'Send him away, father, he is only an impostor,' replied the son. 'I am no impostor, young man,' replied the beggar. 'Only just let me rest on your bench, and I will soon convince you thereof.' The beggar entered, but, unable to lift himself to sit upon the bench, he staggered, and fell upon a heap of shavings and chips which lay under the casement of the shop. It seemed, indeed, that he would want a coffin, for exhausted nature had well nigh extinguished the lamp of life, as the wretched man uttered a groan of distress which no impostor could have imitated. It was not a loud one; it was not a plaintive, whining, acquired, dissembling one. It was a real faint utterance of the spirit of the wretched actually in the distress of death. 'Run, my son, and ask thy mother for a little of her help; and bring hither my cloak and a good woollen blanket; then to thy neighbor Benns, whose skill as a leech may be of service. The man shakes with cold; but hush, my son, disturb not the Lady Latimer. Be quick.' His son was off in an instant, and the good old mother, with her bottle of cordial and blanket, soon obeyed the dictates of charity. The beggar was grateful. He revived. He looked at old Sage, and said-- 'Do you not know me?' 'No!' 'I know you both. Ah! father!--ah! mother!--ah! my friends!--ah! my village! 'Tis here! here--here--I was born, and here I die.' 'And who are you?'