It may be thought that the dulness of a wet day, considering how many such happen in life, especially in Great Britain, is not so extraordinary as to require any particular description. It may be so, but I, who can describe it correctly, especially a wet day in a hollow clearing, amidst the aborigines of a primeval forest, well know, feel, and understand that it is an occurrence near akin to a calamity.

However, the particular dreary day to which I have alluded, was not in the evening unmarked by an event. I was looking out at the prospect before me, displayed by the chequered twilight, when on the road, coming towards the house, I beheld an elderly man and a stripling. Judging by the time that I had observed the rain suspend its violence, I conjectured they had come from some habitation in which they had taken shelter. But wherefore they should come to my house, puzzled me not a little, especially as it was apart from the direct road which led by the tavern to Stockwell.

As years deserve honour, my attention was chiefly attracted to the senior of the two. He appeared to be about my own age, stooped a little in his gait, was rather better dressed than emigrants or settlers are in general, and had, in a word, the guise and bearing of a gentleman, and yet was not gentlemanly. I saw him from a distance, I noted this peculiarity, and it occurred to me that in his style, mien, and carriage he was not unsimilar to some one that I had known before.