I am your friend, your countryman, and I rejoice in what you have done. You have done well and nobly in destroying that evidence of your dishonour; for it is dishonour to barter one's country and its liberties for dastardly security—for one's miserable life. You have done well; but be not rash. Your movements must be in quiet. Nothing rash, nothing precipitate. Every step you now take must be one of caution, for your path is along the steeps of danger. But come with me—you shall know more. First secure those scraps; they may tell tales upon you; a quick hand and close eye may put them together, and then your neck would be fit game for the halter yon sergeant warned you of. But what now—what are the troops about?"
The countryman looked, at his companion's question, and beheld the troops forming in the market-place, while the note of the bugle at intervals, and an occasional sullen tap of the drum, gathered the crowd of the village around them.
"It's a proclamation, squire. That's the market-place, where they read it first. They give us one every two or three days, sometimes about one thing, sometimes another. If the cattle's killed by the whigs, though it may be their own, there's a proclamation; but we don't mind them much, for they only tell us to be quiet and orderly, and, heaven knows, we can't be more so. They will next go to the church, where they will again read it. That's nigher, and we can get round in time to hear what it is. Shall we go, squire?" The other expressed his willingness, and leaving the bridge, they in the direction of the crowd.
