"Do not keep me in suspense!" she said, almost awfully in tone and manner, "am I right in my conjecture?"
"Dearest grandmother, you are!" I answered in my natural voice.
No more was needed: we hung on each other's necks, as had been my wont in boyhood.
"But who is that pedler, Hugh?" demanded my grandmother, after a time. "Can it possibly be Roger, my son?"
"It is no other; we have come to visit you, incog."
"And why this disguise?—Is it connected with the troubles?"
"Certainly; we have wished to take a near view with our own eyes, and supposed it might be unwise to come openly, in our proper characters."
"In this you have done well; yet I hardly know how to welcome you, in your present characters. On no account must your real names be revealed. The demons of tar and feathers, the sons of liberty and equality, who illustrate their principles as they do their courage, by attacking the few with the many, would be stirring, fancying themselves heroes and martyrs in the cause of justice, did they learn you were here. Ten armed and resolute men might drive a hundred of them, I do believe; for they have all the cowardice of thieves, but they are heroes with the unarmed and feeble. Are you safe yourselves, appearing thus disguised, under the new law?"
"We are not armed, not having so much as a pistol; and that will protect us."
"I am sorry to say, Hugh, that this country is no longer what I once knew it. Its justice, if not wholly departed, is taking to itself wings, and its blindness, not in a disregard of persons, but in a faculty of seeing only the stronger side. A landlord, in my opinion, would have but little hope, with jury, judge, or executive, for doing that which thousands of the tenants have done, still do, and will continue to do, with perfect impunity, unless some dire catastrophe stimulate the public functionaries to their duties, by awakening public indignation."