The farmer looked down at the dead face somewhat ruefully, as if it hurt him to hear evil spoken of that clay there, which those locked lips could not answer. It was, indeed, by no means the kind of face common on the roadside--not the sturdy bulldog visage of tramp or mendicant. Those attenuated features were as regular in their lines as Greek sculpture; those hands, cramped in the death throe, were slender and delicate. The rags upon that wasted body had once been the clothes of a gentleman--or had at least been made by a fashionable tailor. The man had perished in his youth--not a thread of silver in the rich chestnut of the abundant hair, long, silken, falling in loose waves about the thin throat and pallid ears. "A well-looking fellow enough before want and sickness came upon him," said the Squire. "Did you find anything about him to give a clue to his name or his belongings?" "Nothing but this," said Bowman, handing his landlord the papers in the cotton handkerchief. Squire Bosworth sat with thoughtful brow, looking over pamphlets and manuscripts. "Just as I thought," he said at last: "the fellow was a plotter, a tool of the Muggite crew, a hack scribbler, sowing the seeds of civil war and revolution with big words and fine sentences, a little Latin and a little Greek. He found he could not live upon his trash--was on the tramp for Portsmouth, I dare swear, meaning to get out of the country, to make his way to America, perhaps, before the mast; as if his wasted carcass would be worth board and lodging where thews and sinews are wanted! Poor devil! a sorry end for his talents. I'll ride to the village and tell the constable to send for the body." "And the baby, Squire?" urged Bowman. "Do you mean to adopt it?" "Adopt! That's a big word, farmer, and means a good deal. I'll think about it, friend, I'll think about it. If it's a girl, perhaps yes. If it's a boy, decidedly no." He rode off with the bundle of papers in his pocket, leaving his tenant full of wonder. What could the Squire, whose miserly habits and want of common humanity were the talk of the county, what could such as he mean by taking compassion upon a nameless brat picked up on the wayside? What magical change had come over his disposition which prompted Roland Bosworth to an act of charity?