I myself
showed a taste for music at an early age, and old Mr. Pontifex on
finding it out, as he soon did, became partial to me in consequence.
It may be thought that with so many irons in the fire he could
hardly be a very thriving man, but this was not the case. His father
had been a day labourer, and he had himself begun life with no other
capital than his good sense and good constitution; now, however, there
was a goodly show of timber about his yard, and a look of solid
comfort over his whole establishment. Towards the close of the
eighteenth century and not long before my father came to Paleham, he
had taken a farm of about ninety acres, thus making a considerable
rise in life. Along with the farm there went an old-fashioned but
comfortable house with a charming garden and an orchard. The
carpenter's business was now carried on in one of the outhouses that
had once been part of some conventual buildings, the remains of
which could be seen in what was called the Abbey Close. The house
itself, emblossomed in honeysuckles and creeping roses, was an
ornament to the whole village, nor were its internal arrangements less
exemplary than its outside was ornamental.
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