 his features as they
advanced slowly to meet each other. The stranger seemed about twenty-five years
old. His dress was of a kind which could hardly be said to indicate his rank
with certainty, for it was such as young gentlemen sometimes wore while on
active exercise in the morning, and which, therefore, was imitated by those of
the inferior ranks, as young clerks and tradesmen, because its cheapness
rendered it attainable, while it approached more nearly to the apparel of youths
of fashion than any other which the manners of the times permitted them to 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'
