"Famine!" quoth Mr. Brown. "Indeed it is very true, very! times are dreadfully bad. I can scarcely get my own living; Parliament certainly ought to do something: but you must forgive me, Mr. Wolfe; it may be dangerous to talk with you on these matters; and, now I think of it, the sooner I get to W---- the better; good morning; a shower's coming on. You won't have the umbrella, then?" "They dare not," said Wolfe to himself, "no, no,--they dare not attack us; they dare not;" and clenching his fist, he pursued, with a quicker step, and a more erect mien, his solitary way. When he was about the distance of three miles from W----, he was overtaken by a middle-aged man of a frank air and a respectable appearance. "Good day, sir," said he; "we seem to be journeying the same way: will it be against your wishes to join company?" Wolfe assented, and the stranger resumed:-- "I suppose, sir, you intend to be present at the meeting at W---- to-morrow? There will be an immense concourse, and the entrance of a new detachment of soldiers, and the various reports of the likelihood of their interference with the assembly, make it an object of some interest and anxiety to look forward to." "True, true," said Wolfe, slowly, eying his new acquaintance with a deliberate and scrutinizing attention. "It will, indeed, be interesting to see how far an evil and hardy government will venture to encroach upon the rights of the people, which it ruins while it pretends to rule." "Of a truth," rejoined the other, "I rejoice that I am no politician. I believe my spirit is as free as any cooped in the narrow dungeon of earth's clay can well be; yet I confess that it has drawn none of its liberty from book, pamphlet, speech, or newspaper, of modern times." "So much the worse for you, sir," said Wolfe, sourly: "the man who has health and education can find no excuse for supineness or indifference to that form of legislation by which his country decays or prospers." "Why," said the other, gayly, "I willingly confess myself less of a patriot than a philosopher; and as long as I am harmless, I strive very little to be useful, in a public capacity; in a private one, as a father, a husband, and a neighbour, I trust I am not utterly without my value." "Pish!" cried Wolfe; "let no man who forgets his public duties prate of his private merits. I tell you, man, that he who can advance by a single hair's-breadth the happiness or the freedom of mankind has done more to save his own soul than if he had paced every step of the narrow circle of his domestic life with the regularity of clockwork."