ABSTRACT
Susan and Michael were to be married in April. He had already gone to take possession of his new farm, three or four miles away from Yew Nook –but that is neighbouring, according to the acceptation of the word in that thinly-populated district, – when William Dixon fell ill. He came home one evening, complaining of head-ache and pains in his limbs, but seemed to loathe the posset which Susan prepared for him; the treacle-posset which was the homely country remedy against an incipient cold. He took to his bed with a sensation of exceeding weariness, and an odd, unusual looking-back to the days of his youth, when he was a lad living with his parents, in this very house.
