Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/145

 therefore to outbalance this unfavourable report, but the apparent malignity and grossness of those who gave it. It was not, however, her character about which I was solicitous, but merely the place where she might be found, and the suitable enquiries respecting her deceased brother, he answered: on this head these people professed utter ignorance, and were either unable or unwilling to direct me to any person in the city who knew more than themselves. After much discourse they at length let fall an intimation that if any one knew her place of retreat, it was probably a country lad, by name Huntly, who lived near the Forks of Delaware. After Waldegrave's death, this lad had paid his sister a visit, and seemed to be admitted on a very confidential footing: she left the house, for the last time, in his company; and he therefore was most likely to know what had become of her.

"The name of Huntly was not totally unknown to me; I myself was born and brought up in the neighbouring township of Chetasco: I had some knowledge of your family; and your name used often to be mentioned by Waldegrave, as that of one who, at a maturer age, would prove himself useful to his country: I determined therefore to apply to you for what information you could give. I designed to visit my father, who lives in Chetasco, and relieve him from that disquiet which his ignorance of my fate could not fail to have inspired: and both these ends could be thus at the same time accomplished.

"Before I left the city I thought it proper to apply to the merchant on whom my bill had been drawn: if this bill had been presented and paid, he had doubtless preserved some record of it; and hence a clue might be afforded, though every other expedient should fail. My usual ill fortune pursued me upon this occasion; for the merchant had lately become insolvent, and to avoid the rage of his creditors, had fled, without leaving any vestige of this or similar transactions behind him. He had, some years since, been an adventurer from Holland, and was suspected to have returned thither.