The man's appearance was rather that of a lay devotee, or palmer, bound on his pilgrimage to different shrines, than of a mendicant friar, or questionary. He wore the hat, scrip, staff, and coarse dalmatic, somewhat like the military cloak of the modern hussar, which were used by such persons on their religious peregrinations. St. Peter's keys, rudely shaped out of some scarlet rag of cloth, appeared on the back of his mantle, placed, as heralds say, saltire wise. This devotee seemed a man of fifty and upwards, well-made, and stout for his age, with a cast of countenance which, though not positively ugly, was far from being well-favoured. There was shrewdness, and an alert expression in his eye and actions, which made some occasional contrast with the sanctimonious demeanour of the character he now bore. This difference betwixt his dress and physiognomy was by no means uncommon among persons of his description, many of whom embraced this mode of life, rather to indulge roving and idle habits, than from any religious call. "Who art thou, good fellow?" said the elder Philipson; "and by what name am I to call thee while we are fellow-travellers?" "Bartholomew, sir," said the man; "Brother Bartholomew--I might say Bartholomæus, but it does not become a poor lay brother like me to aspire to the honour of a learned termination." "And whither does thy journey tend, good Brother Bartholomew?" "In whichever direction your worship chooses to travel, and to require my services as guide," answered the palmer; "always premising, you allow me leisure for my devotions at such holy stations as we pass on our route." "That is, thine own journey hath no professed or pressing object or end?" said the Englishman. "None, as your worship says, peculiar," said the itinerant; "or I might rather say, that my journey, good sir, embraces so many objects, that it is matter of indifference to me which of them I accomplish first. My vow binds me for four years to travel from one shrine, or holy place, to another; but I am not directly tied to visit them by any precise rule of rotation." "That is to say, thy vow of pilgrimage does not prevent thee from hiring thyself to wait upon travellers as their guide," replied Philipson. "If I can unite the devotion I owe to the blessed saints whose shrines I visit, with a service rendered to a wandering fellow-creature who desires to be directed upon his journey, I do maintain," replied Bartholomew, "that the objects are easily to be reconciled to each other." "Especially as a little worldly profit may tend to cement the two duties together, if otherwise incompatible," said Philipson.