Page:Beautiful and interesting account of the shepherd of Salisbury Plain.pdf/3

in collecting together his vast stock of I sheep. As he drew near, he perceived him to be a clean well-looking poor man, near fifty years of age. His coat, I though at first it had probably been of one dark colour, had been in a long course of years so often patched in different sorts of cloth, that it was become hard to say which had been the original colour. But this, while it gave a plain proof of the Shepherd’s poverty, equally proved the exceeding neatness, industry, and good management of his wife. His stockings no less proved her good housewifery, for they were entirely covered with darns of different coloured worsted, but had not a hole in them; and his shirt, though nearly as Coarse as the sails of a ship, was white as the drifted snow, and neatly mended where time had either made a rent or worn it thin. And Mr Johnston was not more struck with the decency of his mean and frugal dress, than with his open honest countenance, which bore strong marks of health, cheerfulness and spirit.