Wolfe darted one of his looks of fire at the speaker, who, nothing abashed, met the glance with an eye, if not as fiery, at least as bold.
“I see,” said the republican, “that we shall not agree upon the topics you have started. If you still intrude your society upon me, you will, at least, choose some other subject of conversation.”
“Pardon me,” said Cole, whose very studies, while they had excited, in their self-defence, his momentary warmth, made him habitually courteous and urbane, “pardon me for my hastiness of expression. I own myself in fault.” And, with this apology, our ex-king slid into the new topics which the scenery and the weather afforded him.
Wolfe, bent upon the object of his present mission, made some inquiries respecting Mordaunt; and though Cole only shared the uncertain information of the country gossips as to the past history of that person, yet the little he did know was sufficient to confirm the republican in his belief of Algernon’s identity; while the ex-gypsy’s account of his rank and reputation in the country made Wolfe doubly anxious to secure, if possible, his good offices and interference on behalf of the meeting. But the conversation was not always restricted to neutral and indifferent ground, but ever and anon wandered into various allusions or opinions from the one, certain to beget retort or controversy in the other.
Had we time and our reader patience, it would have been a rare and fine contrast to have noted more at large the differences of thought and opinion between the companions: each in his several way so ardent for liberty, and so impatient of the control and customs of society; each so enthusiastic for the same object, yet so coldly contemptuous to the enthusiasm of the other. The one guided only by his poetical and erratic tastes, the other solely by dreams, seeming to the world no less baseless, yet, to his own mind, bearing the name of stern judgment and inflexible truth. Both men of active and adventurous spirits, to whom forms were fetters and ceremonies odious; yet, deriving from that mutual similarity only pity for mutual perversion, they were memorable instances of the great differences congeniality itself will occasion, and of the never-ending varieties which minds, rather under the influence of imagination than judgment, will create.
CHAPTER LXXV.
Gratis anhelans, multa agendo, nihil agens.—PHAEDRUS.
[“Panting and labouring in vain; doing much,—effecting nothing.”]
Upon entering the town, the streets displayed all the bustle and excitement which the approaching meeting was eminently calculated to create in a place ordinarily quiescent and undisturbed: groups of men were scattered in different parts, conversing with great eagerness; while here and there some Demosthenes of the town, impatient of the coming strife, was haranguing his little knot of admiring friends, and preparing his oratorical organs by petty skirmishing for the grand battle of the morrow. Now and then the eye roved upon the gaunt forms of Lord Ulswater’s troopers, as they strolled idly along the streets, in pairs, perfectly uninterested by the great event which set all the more peaceable inmates of the town in a ferment, and returning, with a slighting and supercilious glance, the angry looks and muttered anathemas which, ever and anon, the hardier spirits of the petitioning party liberally bestowed upon them.
As Wolfe and his comrade entered the main street, the former was accosted by some one of his compatriots, who, seizing him by the arm, was about to apprise the neighbouring idlers, by a sudden exclamation, of the welcome entrance of the eloquent and noted republican. But Wolfe perceived and thwarted his design.