nd I have taken to my heart the maxim, 'Knowledge is power.'
And yet, with all my struggles, will knowledge ever place me on the same
level as that on which this dunce is born? I don't wonder that the poor
should hate the rich. But of all the poor, who should hate the rich like
the pauper gentleman? I suppose Audley Egerton means me to come into
Parliament, and be a Tory like himself. What! keep things as they are!
No; for me not even Democracy, unless there first come Revolution. I
understand the cry of a Marat--'More blood!' Marat had lived as a poor
man, and cultivated science--in the sight of a prince's palace."

He turned sharply round, and glared vindictively on the poor old Hall,
which, though a very comfortable habitation, was certainly no palace;
and, with his arms still folded on his breast, he walked backward, as if
not to lose the view, nor the chain of ideas it conjured up.

"But," he continued to soliloquize--"but of revolution there is no
chance. Yet the same wit and will that would thrive in revolutions
should thrive in this commonplace life. Knowledge is power. Well, then
shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him--what from? His
father's halls? Well--but if he were dead, who would be the heir of
Hazeldean? Have I not heard my mother say that I am as near in blood to
this Squire as any one, if he had no children? Oh, but the boy's life is
worth ten of mine! Oust him from what? At least from the thoughts of his
uncle Egerton--an uncle who has never even seen him! That, at least, is
more feasible. 'Make my way in life,' sayest thou, Audley Egerton.
Ay, and to the fortune thou hast robbed from my ancestors.
Simulation--simulation. Lord Bacon allows simulation. Lord Bacon
practiced it--and--"

Here the soliloquy came to a sudden end; for as, rapt in his thoughts,
the boy had continued to walk backward; he had come to the verge where
the lawn slided off into the ditch of the ha-ha--and, just as he was
fortifying himself by the precept and practice of my Lord Bacon, the
ground went from under him, and slap into the ditch went Randal Leslie!

It so happened that the Squire, whose active genius was always at some
repair or improvement, had been but a few days before widening and
sloping off the ditch just in that part, so that the earth was fresh and
damp, and not yet either turfed or flattened down. Thus when Randal,
recovering his first surprise and shock, rose to his feet, he found his
clothes