With the return of spring, when his sister came to live with him for some
months, Dr Haynes's entries become more cheerful, and, indeed, no symptom
of depression is discernible until the early part of September when he
was again left alone. And now, indeed, there is evidence that he was
incommoded again, and that more pressingly. To this matter I will return
in a moment, but I digress to put in a document which, rightly or
wrongly, I believe to have a bearing on the thread of the story.
The account-books of Dr Haynes, preserved along with his other papers,
show, from a date but little later than that of his institution as
archdeacon, a quarterly payment of L25 to J. L. Nothing could have been
made of this, had it stood by itself. But I connect with it a very dirty
and ill-written letter, which, like another that I have quoted, was in a
pocket in the cover of a diary. Of date or postmark there is no vestige,
and the decipherment was not easy. It appears to run:
Dr Sr.
I have bin expctin to her off you theis last wicks, and not Haveing
done so must supose you have not got mine witch was saying how me and
my man had met in with bad times this season all seems to go cross
with us on the farm and which way to look for the rent we have no
knowledge of it this been the sad case with us if you would have the
great [liberality _probably, but the exact spelling defies
reproduction_] to send fourty pounds otherwise steps will have to be
took which I should not wish.
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