But just at the period of his journey when we take him up, Middleton had
been for two or three days the companion of an old man who interested him
more than most of his wayside companions; the more especially as he
seemed to be wandering without an object, or with such a dreamy object as
that which led Middleton's own steps onward. He was a plain old man
enough, but with a pale, strong-featured face and white hair, a certain
picturesqueness and venerableness, which Middleton fancied might have
befitted a richer garb than he now wore. In much of their conversation,
too, he was sensible that, though the stranger betrayed no acquaintance
with literature, nor seemed to have conversed with cultivated minds, yet
the results of such acquaintance and converse were here. Middleton was
inclined to think him, however, an old man, one of those itinerants, such
as Wordsworth represented in the "Excursion," who smooth themselves by
the attrition of the world and gain a knowledge equivalent to or better
than that of books from the actual intellect of man awake and active
around them.

Often, during the short period since their companionship originated,
Middleton had felt impelled to disclose to the old man the object of his
journey, and the wild tale by which, after two hundred years, he had been
blown as it were across the ocean, and drawn onward to commence this
search. The old man's ordinary conversation was of a nature to draw forth
such a confidence as this; frequently turning on the traditions of the
wayside; the reminiscences that lingered on the battle-fields of the
Roses, or of the Parliament, like flowers nurtured by the blood of the
slain, and prolonging their race through the centuries for the wayfarer
to pluck them; or the family histories of the castles, manor-houses, and
seats which, of various epochs, had their park-gates along the roadside
and would be seen with dark gray towers or ancient gables, or more modern
forms of architecture, rising up among clouds of ancient oaks. Middleton