eath, now contrasting the stern features of some painted martyr
with the wrinkled front and weather-beaten traits of some white-haired
beggar, now musing over the quiet existence of the humble figure whose
heavy sabots wake the echoes of the vaulted aisle, or watching, perhaps,
that venerable priest who glides about before the altar in his white
robes, and disappears by some unseen door, seeming like a phantom of
the place. The little relics of village devotion, so touching in their
poverty, awake no thought within _you_ of the pious souls in yonder
hamlet. The old cure himself, as he jogs along on his ambling pony,
suggests nothing save the figure of age and decrepitude. _You_ have
not seen the sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks of his humble flock, who
salute him as he passes, nor gazed upon that broad high forehead, where
benevolence and charity have fixed their dwelling. The foot-sore veteran
or the young conscript have not been your fellow-travellers; mayhap you
would despise them. Their joys and sorrows, their hopes, their fears,
their wishes, all move in a humble sphere, and little suit the ears of
those whose fortune is a higher one.

Not that the staff and the knapsack are the passports to only such as
these. My experience would tell very differently. With some of the most
remarkable men I ever met, my acquaintance grew on the road; some of the
very pleasantest moments of my life had their origin in the chances
of the wayside; the little glimpses I have ever enjoyed of national
character have been owing to these same accidents; and I have often
hailed some casual interruption to my route, some passing obstacle to
my journey, as the source of an adventure which might afford me the
greatest pleasure. I date this feeling to a good number of years back,
and in a great measure to an incident that occurred to me when first
wandering in this country. It is scarcely a story, but as illustrating
my position I will tell it.

Soon after my Polish adventure--I scarcely like to be more particular
in my designation of it--I received a small remittance from England, and
started for Namur. My Uncle Toby's recollections had been an inducement
for the journey, had I not the more pleasant one in my wish to see the
Meuse, of whose scenery I had already heard so much.

The season was a delightful one--the beginning of autumn; and truly
the country far surpassed all my anticipations. The road to Dinant led
along by the river, the c