The inn, she said, was originally a farmhouse, occupied by a yeoman
farmer, evidently of a superior, if rather eccentric, character, who had
been very poor until he reached old age, when a son died suddenly in
the Colonies and left him an unexpected amount of money, almost a
fortune.
The old man thereupon altered no whit his simple manner of living, but
devoted his income entirely to the improvement of the village and to the
assistance of its inhabitants; he did this quite regardless of his
personal likes and dislikes, as if one and all were absolutely alike to
him, objects of a genuine and impersonal benevolence. People had always
been a little afraid of the man, not understanding his eccentricities,
but the simple force of this love for humanity changed all that in a
very short space of time; and before he died he came to be known as the
Father of the Village and was held in great love and veneration by all.
A short time before his end, however, he began to act queerly. He spent
his money just as usefully and wisely, but the shock of sudden wealth
after a life of poverty, people said, had unsettled his mind.
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