Stories for the Young; Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI.More, Hannah
Religion
Stories for the Young; Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI.
More, Hannah
Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
The little sleep she had that night was disturbed with dreams of
graves, and ghosts, and funerals; but as they were morning dreams, she
knew those always went by contraries, and that a funeral denoted a
wedding. Still, a sigh would now and then heave, to think that in that
wedding Jacob could have no part. Such of my readers as know the power
which superstition has over the weak and credulous mind, scarcely need
be told, that poor Sally's unhappiness was soon completed. She forgot
all her vows to Jacob; she at once forsook an honest man whom she
loved, and consented to marry a stranger, of whom she knew nothing,
from a ridiculous notion that she was compelled to do so by a decree
which she had it not in her power to resist. She married this Robert
Price, the strange gardener, whom she soon found to be very worthless,
and very much in debt. He had no such thing as "money beyond sea," as
the fortune-teller had told her; but, alas, he had another wife there.
He got immediate possession of Sally's L20. Rachel put in for her
share, but he refused to give her a farthing, and bade her get away,
or he would have her taken up on the vagrant act. He soon ran away
from Sally, leaving her to bewail her own weakness; for it was that
indeed, and not any irresistible fate, which had been the cause of her
ruin. To complete the misery, she herself was suspected of having
stolen the silver cup which Rachel had pocketed. Her master, however,
would not prosecute her, as she was falling into a deep decline, and
she died in a few months of a broken heart, a sad warning to all
credulous girls.
* * * * *
Rachel, whenever she got near home, used to drop her trade of
fortune-telling, and only dealt in the wares of her basket. Mr.
Wilson, the clergyman, found her one day dealing out some very wicked
ballads to some children. He went up with a view to give her a
reprimand; but had no sooner begun his exhortation than up came a
constable, followed by several people.
"There she is, that is she, that is the old witch who tricked my wife
out of the five guineas," said one of them. "Do your office,
constable; seize the old hag. She may tell fortunes and find pots of
gold in Taunton jail, for there she will have nothing else to do."
This was that very farmer Jenkins, whose wife had been cheated by
Rachel of the five guineas. He had taken pains to trace her to her own
parish: he did not so much value the loss of the money, but he thought
it was a duty he owed the public to clear the country of such vermin.
Mr. Wilson immediately committed her. She took her trial at the next
assizes, when she was sentenced to a year's imprisonment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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