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[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE.

SIR FILMER HOPEWELL.]




VILLAGE ANNALS,

CONTAINING

AUSTERUS AND HUMANUS.

A SYMPATHETIC TALE.

[Illustration]

    EMBELLISHED WITH FINE ENGRAVINGS.

    _PHILADELPHIA_:
    PUBLISHED BY JOHNSON & WARNER,
    NO. 147, MARKET STREET.

    Griggs & Dickinsons, Printers.
    1814.




VILLAGE ANNALS.


[Illustration]

[Sidenote: Skaiting.]

[Sidenote: Village Ale-House.]


IT was in that season of the year when nature wears an universal gloom,
and the pinching frost arrests the running stream in its course, and
gives a massy solidity to the lake that lately curled with every
breeze, that Sir Filmer Hopewell, having lost his road in the Dale of
Tiviot, was met by two youths that swiftly skimmed the surface of the
slippery brook, and sought an antidote against the inclement cold in
the wholesome though dangerous exercise of skaiting. Of these hale
and ruddy young villagers he enquired his road, or where he might
meet with a lodging for the night, for the sun was declining in the
shades of evening fast encompassing the dale. They directed him to the
summit of a neighbouring hill, on the declivity of which there stood a
small village, where probably he might meet with accommodation. Though
wearied and fatigued, this information gave him vigour, and he hastened
up the hill, and soon beheld with pleasure, beheld the sign of the