Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/143

 "My road lay through the wildest and most rugged districts,' it did not exceed ninety miles, but seven days were consumed on the way. The motion of the vehicle racked me with the keenest pangs, and my attendants concluded that every stage would be my last. They had been selected without due regard to their characters: they were knavish and inhuman, and omitted nothing, but actual violence, to hasten my death: they purposely retarded the journey, and protracted to seven what might have been readily performed in four days: they neglected to execute the orders which they had received respecting my lodging and provisions; and from them, as well as from the peasants, who were sure to be informed that I was a heretic, I suffered every species of insult and injury. My constitution as well as my frame possessed a fund of strength of which I had no previous conception. In spite of hardship and exposure and abstinence, I at last arrived at Oporto.

"Instead of being carried, agreeably to Chaledro's direction, to a convent of St. Jago, I was left, late in the evening, in the porch of a common hospital. My attendants, having laid me on the pavement, and loaded me with imprecations, left me to obtain admission by my own efforts. I passed the livelong night on this spot, and in the morning was received into the house, in a state which left it uncertain whether I was alive or dead.

"After recovering my sensibility, I made various efforts to procure a visit from some English merchant: this was no easy undertaking for one in my deplorable condition; I was too weak to articulate my words distinctly, and these words were rendered by my foreign accent scarcely intelligible: the likelihood of my speedy death made the people about me more indifferent to my wants and petitions.

"I will not dwell upon my repeated disappointments, but content myself with mentioning that I gained the attention of a French gentleman, whose curiosity brought him to view the hospital; through him I obtained a visit from an English merchant; and finally gained the notice of a person, who formerly resided in America, and of whom I had imperfect knowledge: by their kindness I was removed from the hospital to a private house; a Scottish surgeon was