my mother took her way to the excommunicated cottage. Her visit was as
signal a failure as those that preceded it. Miles Square refused the
basket,--"he was not going to accept alms and eat the bread of charity;"
and on my mother meekly suggesting that "if Mr. Miles Square would
condescend to look into the Bible, he would see that even charity was no
sin in giver or recipient," Mr. Miles Square had undertaken to prove
"that, according to the Bible, he had as much a right to my mother's
property as she had; that all things should be in common; and when all
things were in common, what became of charity? No, he could not eat my
uncle's arrowroot and drink his wine while my uncle was improperly
withholding from him and his fellow-creatures so many unprofitable
acres: the land belonged to the people." It was now the turn of
Pisistratus to go. He went once, and he went often. Miles Square and
Pisistratus wrangled and argued, argued and wrangled, and ended by
taking a fancy to each other; for this poor Miles Square was not half so
bad as his doctrines. His errors arose from intense sympathy with the
sufferings he had witnessed amidst the misery which accompanies the
reign of millocratism, and from the vague aspirations of a half-taught,
impassioned, earnest nature. By degrees I persuaded him to drink the
wine and eat the arrowroot en attendant that millennium which was to
restore the land to the people. And then my mother came again and
softened his heart, and for the first time in his life let into its cold
crotchets the warm light of human gratitude. I lent him some books,
amongst others a few volumes on Australia. A passage in one of the
latter, in which it was said "that an intelligent mechanic usually made
his way in the colony, even as a shepherd, better than a dull
agricultural laborer," caught hold of his fancy and seduced his
aspirations into a healthful direction. Finally, as he recovered, he
entreated me to let him accompany me. And as I may not have to return
to Miles Square, I think it right here to state that he did go with me