f the Squire's park pales! and Randal, seeing
a little gate, bade the farmer stop his gig, and descended. The boy
plunged amid the thick oak groves; the farmer went his way blithely, and
his mellow merry whistle came to Randal's moody ear as he glided quick
under the shadow of the trees.

He arrived at the Hall, to find that all the family were at church; and,
according to the patriarchal custom, the church-going family embraced
nearly all the servants. It was therefore an old invalid housemaid who
opened the door to him. She was rather deaf, and seemed so stupid that
Randal did not ask leave to enter and wait for Frank's return. He
therefore said briefly that he would just stroll on the lawn, and call
again when church was over.

The old woman stared, and strove to hear him; meanwhile Randal turned
round abruptly, and sauntered towards the garden side of the handsome
old house.

There was enough to attract any eye in the smooth greensward of the
spacious lawn--in the numerous parterres of varying flowers--in the
venerable grandeur of the two mighty cedars, which threw their still
shadows over the grass--and in the picturesque building, with its
projecting mullions and heavy gables; yet I fear that it was with no
poet's nor painter's eye that this young old man gazed on the scene
before him.

He beheld the evidence of wealth--and the envy of wealth jaundiced his
soul.

Folding his arms on his breast, he stood a while, looking all around him
with closed lips and lowering brow; then he walked slowly on, his eyes
fixed on the ground, and muttered to himself----

"The heir to this property is little better than a dunce; and they tell
me I have talents and learning, and 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 palac