speak of his outward man, which will assuredly
be suspended by a cord, if he mendeth not his manners. Men say that,
young as he is, he is one of the laird's gang.'

'Of the laird's gang!' said I, repeating the words in surprise. 'Do you
mean the person with whom I slept last night? I heard you call him the
laird. Is he at the head of a gang?'

'Nay, I meant not precisely a gang,' said the Quaker, who appeared in
his haste to have spoken more than he intended--a company, or party, I
should have said; but thus it is, friend Latimer, with the wisest men
when they permit themselves to be perturbed with passion, and speak as
in a fever, or as with the tongue of the foolish and the forward. And
although thou hast been hasty to mark my infirmity, yet I grieve not
that thou hast been a witness to it, seeing that the stumbles of the
wise may be no less a caution to youth and inexperience, than is the
fall of the foolish.'

This was a sort of acknowledgement of what I had already begun to
suspect--that my new friend's real goodness of disposition, joined to
the acquired quietism of his religious sect, had been unable entirely to
check the effervescence of a temper naturally warm and hasty.

Upon the present occasion, as if sensible he had displayed a greater
degree of emotion than became his character, Joshua avoided further
allusion to Benjie and Solomon, and proceeded to solicit my attention to
the natural objects around us, which increased in beauty and interest,
as, still conducted by the meanders of the brook, we left the common
behind us, and entered a more cultivated and enclosed country, where
arable and pasture ground was agreeably varied with groves and hedges.
Descending now almost close to the stream, our course lay through a
little gate, into a pathway kept with great neatness, the sides of which
were decorated with trees and flowering shrubs of the hardier species;
until, ascending by a gentle slope, we issued from the grove, and stood
almost at once in front of a low but very neat building, of an irregular
form; and my guide, shaking me cordially by the hand, made me welcome to
Mount Sharon.

The wood through which we had approached this little mansion was thrown
around it both on the north and north-west, but, breaking off into
different directions, was intersected by a few fields well watered and
sheltered. The house fronted to the south-east, and from thence the
pleasure-ground, or, I should rather say, the