Poverty began already to stare him in the face, when the only friend who, having shared his prosperity, remained true to his adverse fate,--a friend, fortunately for him, of high connections and brilliant prospects--succeeded in obtaining for him the humble living of A----. To this primitive spot the once jovial roisterer cheerfully retired--contrived to live contented upon an income somewhat less than he had formerly given to his groom--preached very short sermons to a very scanty and ignorant congregation, some of whom only understood Welsh--did good to the poor and sick in his own careless, slovenly way--and, uncheered or unvexed by wife and children, he rose in summer with the lark and in winter went to bed at nine precisely, to save coals and candles. For the rest, he was the most skilful angler in the whole county; and so willing to communicate the results of his experience as to the most taking colour of the flies, and the most favoured haunts of the trout--that he had given especial orders at the inn, that whenever any strange gentleman came to fish, Mr. Caleb Price should be immediately sent for. In this, to be sure, our worthy pastor had his usual recompense. First, if the stranger were tolerably liberal, Mr. Price was asked to dinner at the inn; and, secondly, if this failed, from the poverty or the churlishness of the obliged party, Mr. Price still had an opportunity to hear the last news--to talk about the Great World--in a word, to exchange ideas, and perhaps to get an old newspaper, or an odd number of a magazine. Now, it so happened that one afternoon in October, when the periodical excursions of the anglers, becoming gradually rarer and more rare, had altogether ceased, Mr. Caleb Price was summoned from his parlour in which he had been employed in the fabrication of a net for his cabbages, by a little white-headed boy, who came to say there was a gentleman at the inn who wished immediately to see him--a strange gentleman, who had never been there before. Mr. Price threw down his net, seized his hat, and, in less than five minutes, he was in the best room of the little inn.