Yesterday he was of neither mark nor likelihood; a vagrant
boy, the attendant on a relative, of whose sane judgment he himself
had not the highest opinion; but now he had become, he knew not why,
or wherefore, or to what extent, the custodier, as the Scottish phrase
went, of some important state secret, in the safe keeping of which the
Regent himself was concerned. It did not diminish from, but rather
added to the interest of a situation so unexpected, that Roland
himself did not perfectly understand wherein he stood committed by the
state secrets, in which he had unwittingly become participator. On
the contrary, he felt like one who looks on a romantic landscape, of
which he sees the features for the first time, and then obscured with
mist and driving tempest. The imperfect glimpse which the eye catches
of rocks, trees, and other objects around him, adds double dignity to
these shrouded mountains and darkened abysses, of which the height,
depth, and extent, are left to imagination.
But mortals, especially at the well-appetized age which precedes
twenty years, are seldom so much engaged either by real or conjectural
subjects of speculation, but that their earthly wants claim their hour
of attention. And with many a smile did our hero, so the reader may
term him if he will, hail the re-appearance of his friend Adam
Woodcock, bearing on one platter a tremendous portion of boiled beef,
and on another a plentiful allowance of greens, or rather what the
Scotch call lang-kale.
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