wear. If his air and manner could
be trusted, however, this person seemed rather to be dressed under than
above his rank; for his carriage was bold and somewhat supercilious, his
step easy and free, his manner daring and unconstrained. His stature was
of the middle size, or rather above it, his limbs well-proportioned, yet
not so strong as to infer the reproach of clumsiness. His features were
uncommonly handsome, and all about him would have been interesting and
prepossessing but for that indescribable expression which habitual
dissipation gives to the countenance, joined with a certain audacity in
look and manner, of that kind which is often assumed as a mask for
confusion and apprehension.

Butler and the stranger met--surveyed each other--when, as the latter,
slightly touching his hat, was about to pass by him, Butler, while he
returned the salutation, observed, "A fine morning, sir--You are on the
hill early."

"I have business here," said the young man, in a tone meant to repress
farther inquiry.

"I do not doubt it, sir," said Butler. "I trust you will forgive my
hoping that it is of a lawful kind?"

"Sir," said the other, with marked surprise, "I never forgive
impertinence, nor can I conceive what title you have to hope anything
about what no way concerns you."

"I am a soldier, sir," said Butler, "and have a charge to arrest
evil-doers in the name of my Master."

"A soldier!" said the young man, stepping back, and fiercely laying his
hand on his sword--"A soldier, and arrest me! Did you reckon what your
life was worth, before you took the commission upon you?"

"You mistake me, sir," said Butler, gravely; "neither my warfare nor my
warrant are of this world. I am a preacher of the gospel, and have power,
in my Master's name, to command the peace upon earth and good-will
towards men, which was proclaimed with the gospel."

"A minister!" said the stranger, carelessly, and with an expression
approaching to scorn. "I know the gentlemen of your cloth in Scotland
claim a strange right of intermeddling with men's private affairs. But I
have been abroad, and know better than to be priest-ridden."

"Sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be more decently
said, of my calling, interfere with men's private affairs, for the
gratification either of idle curiosity, or for worse motives, you cannot
have learned a better lesson abroad than to contemn such practices. But
in my Master's work, I am called