of peace departed, and left me on the bank of the stream.
Whether from the effect of his words, or from want of inclination to the
sport, I know not, but from that day I became less and less a
practitioner of that 'cruel fishing.' I rarely flung line and angle into
the water, but I not unfrequently wandered by the banks of the pleasant
rivulet. It seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed
myself of his kind invitation. I say singular, for the extraordinary,
under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me; and I had
discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man. Yet I went
not near him, certainly not from bashfulness or timidity, feelings to
which I had long been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps,
for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those calm,
quiet lips, and my after-course might have been widely different. As it
was, I fell in with other guess companions, from whom I received widely
different impressions than those I might have derived from him. When
many years had rolled on, long after I had attained manhood, and had seen
and suffered much, and when our first interview had long since been
effaced from the mind of the man of peace, I visited him in his venerable
hall, and partook of the hospitality of his hearth. And there I saw his
gentle partner and his fair children, and on the morrow he showed me the
books of which he had spoken years before by the side of the stream. In
the low quiet chamber, whose one window, shaded by a gigantic elm, looks
down the slope towards the pleasant stream, he took from the shelf his
learned books, Zohar and Mishna, Toldoth Jesu and Abarbenel. 'I am fond
of these studies,' said he, 'which, perhaps, is not to be wondered at,
seeing that our people have been compared to the Jews. In one respect I
confess we are similar to them; we are fond of getting money. I do not
like this last author, this Abarbenel, the worse for having been a
money-changer. I am a banker myself, as thou knowest.'

And would there were many like him, amidst the money-changers of princes!
The hall of many an earl lacks the bounty, the palace of many a prelate
the piety and learning, which adorn the quiet Quaker's home!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

FAIR OF HORSES--LOOKS OF RESPECT--THE FAST TROTTER--PAIR OF EYES--STRANGE
MEN--JASPER, YOUR PAL--FORCE OF BLOOD--THE YOUNG LADY WITH DIAMONDS

I was standing on the castle hill in th