they past the castle gate, "I have followed you sooner than I expected. Will circumstances be always thus favourable to our wishes?"

CHAPTER III.

UNDER any circumstances the change of government creates a peculiar and mysterious emotion in the minds of men, who are never so deeply sensible of the worth and importance of sacred majesty as when its person is snatched from them, and the senses, thrilled by the awe of the invisible, put on that religious veneration which neither fear nor hope quickens, and which, itself inscrutable, owes its existence to the inscrutable. But if a youthful king suddenly closes his eyes, whose opening life gave scope to expectation, if parties divide the land, if danger threatens a hard-earned faith, if the death of the ruler is at the same time the destruction of the prevailing doctrines, and do those, who were put down, again venture to raise their heads then will men's ways cross each other as their opinions. There is a secret fermentation in a

thousand places at the same time, and the fire burns concealed, which an accidental breath of air will kindle into flames. Highways and inns are never fuller than in such ticklish times; the active man must look about him for the strongest stimulus to action; the indolent involuntarily subserves every one; for, like the unfruitful whirlwind that carries with it the seed where it is to fall, he collects the rumours and signs of the times for the attentive observer, forwards his views, and is the breath that fans the flames.

With Ralph Partridge the concourse was so much the greater, as the vicinity to London and the Thames occasioned a constant traffic, and never since the wars of the White and Red Rose had England been in a higher state of excitement. The long reigns of Henry the Seventh and Eighth made the historical recollections of these times very distant to the many. images too of the past, always more or less faint, are easily dimmed, if not put out, by the stronger

The

colours of the present, and the anxiety which oppresses the heart at an immediate danger is a very different thing from the feeling which sympathy awakes from the dust of buried ages.

"The devil take the fog!" said Ralph, coming back to the hearth from the window, which to-day was unusually empty; it presses on the breast with a weight of lead! I wonder what will be the upshot."

"What will be the upshot?" said his wife, rising from her seat and stretching her neck out into the road; "don't trouble yourself about it, Ralph," she added slowly and at intervals, like one who, occupied with other matters, only moves his lips mechanically; "See! yonder come travellers. Quick, and meet them, inan, and leave your anxious looks and wrinkled brows here behind you in your parlour. By my troth, you shuffle your cards badly, and it would cost no one any great trouble to find out your game.' "Travellers!" said Partridge, without replying to this sally; "how the deuce can you see

them? The air is too thick to distinguish any

thing without."

"Notwithstanding, I do distinguish, and very clearly, too, a troop of horsemen, that are coming straight down the hill towards our house. They are armed!-without doubt, soldiers."

"Then Heaven be with us," sighed her husband; if once they take to soldiering again, there will be no end of butchery. But I heard yesterday at Newmarket some whispers of a levy, and recruiting officers are said to be abroad; a fine hearing for drones and drunkards! To cheat innkeepers, and wash out their reckonings with their blood will be all fair play."

"What is the use of this?" cried Dame Partridge impatiently; "they are coming, and you had best let them in before they break the door open with the butt-end of their muskets."

Ralph hastened to the door, cap in hand, just