For why--it is said he is a rich man and a kind one.

He does a world of good to the poor." While Sibyll listened to such explanations as Madge could give her, the stranger, who had carefully closed the door of the student's chamber, after regarding Adam for a moment with silent but keen scrutiny, thus began,-- "When last we met, Adam Warner, it was with satchells on our backs.

Look well at me!" "Troth," answered Adam, languidly, for he was still under the deep dejection that had followed the scene with Sibyll, "I cannot call you to mind, nor seems it veritable that our schooldays passed together, seeing that my hair is gray and men call me old; but thou art in all the lustihood of this human life." "Nathless," returned the stranger, "there are but two years or so between thine age and mine.

When thou wert poring over the crabbed text, and pattering Latin by the ell, dost thou not remember a lack-grace good-for-naught, Robert Hilyard, who was always setting the school in an uproar, and was finally outlawed from that boy-world, as he hath been since from the man's world, for inciting the weak to resist the strong ?" "Ah," exclaimed Adam, with a gleam of something like joy on his face, "art thou indeed that riotous, brawling, fighting, frank-hearted, bold fellow, Robert Hilyard?
Ha! ha!--those were merry days! I have known none like them--" The old schoolfellows shook hands heartily.
"The world has not fared well with thee in person or pouch, I fear me, poor Adam," said Hilyard; "thou canst scarcely have passed thy fiftieth year, and yet thy learned studies have given thee the weight of sixty; while I, though ever in toil and bustle, often wanting a meal, and even fearing the halter, am strong and hearty as when I shot my first fallow buck in the king's forest, and kissed the forester's pretty daughter.
Yet, methinks, Adam, if what I hear of thy tasks be true, thou and I have each been working for one end; thou to make the world other than it is, and I to--" "What! hast thou, too, taken nourishment from the bitter milk of Philosophy,--thou, fighting Rob ?" "I know not whether it be called philosophy, but marry, Edward of York would call it rebellion; they are much the same, for both war against rules established!" returned Hilyard, with more depth of thought than his careless manner seemed to promise.

He paused, and laying his broad brown hand on Warner's shoulder, resumed, "Thou art poor, Adam!" "Very poor,--very, very!" "Does thy philosophy disdain gold ?" "What can philosophy achieve without it?
She is a hungry dragon, and her very food is gold!" "Wilt thou brave some danger--thou went ever a fearless boy when thy blood was up, though so meek and gentle--wilt thou brave some danger for large reward ?" "My life braves the scorn of men, the pinchings of famine, and, it may be, the stake and the fagot.