“Is he indeed?” said the old man, in a lower tone than he had been speaking in just before; “I grieve to hear it; but all men, even kings, must die; and I trust he has left a successor to his humble throne among his native hills, as worthy to reign as himself and his ancestors. William Tyson was a neighbour of our own, and owner of a very neat homestead and large sheep-farm in the vale of Tilberthwaite. One could see no possible reason why one so well to do in the world should feel any dissatisfaction either with Church or State. But, sir, what has reason to do with follies like these? William was a man ‘wise in his own conceit,’ and I do not think Solomon was far wrong when he said of such a one, that ‘there is more hope of a fool than of him.’ Well, sir, Gawen and I lent our ears most attentively to catch the substance of the handsome stranger’s address, and soon found that he was speaking of the equality of civil rights, to which, he said, all men were born by nature. ‘All men,’ cried he, ‘come into the world in precisely the same condition.’ ‘I do not see how that can well be,’ said a decrepid-looking wretch sitting close to the speaker, ‘when I came into the world with a withered arm and leg, which have hardly ever grown since, and Jack Strong there was born with the limbs of a giant, and the strength of a buffalo!’ ‘I speak not of natural, but of civil equality,’ said the stranger, somewhat puzzled by the objection; ‘I mean that one man has as much right to property as another.’ ‘Aye, aye,’ said William Tyson, much pleased with this view of the subject, ‘I have long thought myself quite as much entitled to Coniston Hall as Sir Daniel le Fleming himself, and should much like to have the guiding of it for the rest of my days.’ “I wus ye may get it,’ said Peter Hoggarth, one of William’s own shepherds, who was standing unexpectedly near his master; ‘_I_ shall be satisfied with _your_ bonny holmes of Grey Goosthwaite, which I think I can farm quite as well as my master!’ “William Tyson was evidently by no means pleased with this intrusion of his own shepherd’s; for it was clear that he had no manner of intention of resigning Grey Goosthwaite to his herdsman when he took possession himself of the broad acres of Coniston Hall. So true is it, that all men would level _up_ to those above them, none _down_ to those below them!