alien
with no passport:--or suppose any other little supposes you like: only
keep them to yourself, and talk as low if you please as convenient."

"Well, be it so: here's the portmanteau: take care you don't drop this
little letter-case."

The stranger tossed the portmanteau over his shoulder; and both pushed
forward up the pass at a rapid pace. For some miles they advanced in
silence: and Bertram, being again left to his own meditations, had
leisure to recur to his original suspicions. Whenever the stranger
happened to be a little a-head of him, Bertram feared that he might be
then absconding with his property. When he stopped for a moment,
Bertram feared that he was stopping for no good. In no way could he
entirely liberate himself from uneasy thoughts. Even upon his own
account of himself the man wore rather a suspicious character; and what
made it most so in the eyes of Bertram was the varying style of his
dialect. He seemed to have engrafted the humorous phraseology of
nautical life, which he wished to pass for his natural style, upon the
original stock of a provincial dialect: and yet at times, when he was
betrayed into any emotion or was expressing anger at social
institutions, a more elevated diction and finer choice of expressions
showed that somewhere or other the man must have enjoyed an intercourse
with company of a higher class. In one or other part it was clear that
he was a dissembler, and wearing a masque that could not argue any
good purposes. Spite of all which however, and in the midst of his
distrust, some feeling of kinder interest in the man arose in Bertram's
mind--whether it were from compassion as towards one who seemed to have
been unfortunate, or from some more obscure feeling that he could not
explain to himself.

The road now wound over a rising ground; and the stranger pointed out
some lights on the left which gleamed out from the universal darkness.

"Yonder is Machynleth, if _that_ is to be our destination. But, if the
gentleman's journey lies further, I could show him another way which
fetches a compass about the town."

"It is late already and very cold: for what reason then should I avoid
Machynleth?"

"Oh, every man has his own thoughts and reasons: and very advisable it
is that he should keep as many of them as possible to himself. Let no
man ask another his name, his rank, whither he is bound, on what
errand, and so forth. And, if he does, let no man answer him. For under
al