Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/261

 in his cabinet; he entered the chamber in my absence, and found the cabinet unfastened, and the manuscript gone. It was I by whom the cabinet was opened; but the manuscript supposed to be contained in it, was buried in the earth beneath the elm. How should Clithero be unacquainted with its situation, since none but he could have dug for it this grave?

This mystery vanished when I reflected on the history of my own manuscript. Clithero had buried his treasure with his own hands, as mine had been secreted by myself; but both acts had been performed during sleep: the deed was neither prompted by the will, nor noticed by the senses, of him by whom it was done. Disastrous and humiliating is the state of man! By his own hands is constructed the mass of misery and error in which his steps are for ever involved.

Thus it was with thy friend. Hurried on by phantoms too indistinct to be now recalled, I wandered from my chamber to the desert: I plunged into some unvisited cavern, and easily proceeded till I reached the edge of a pit: there my step was deceived, and I tumbled headlong from the precipice. The fall bereaved me of sense, and I continued breathless and motionless during the remainder of the night and the ensuing day.

How little cognisance have men over the actions and motives of each other! How total is our blindness with regard to our own performances! Who would have sought me in the bowels of this mountain? Ages might have passed away before my bones would be discovered in this tomb by some traveller whom curiosity had prompted to explore it.

I was roused from these reflections by Sarsefield's return. Enquiring into Clithero's condition, he answered that the unhappy man was insensible; but that, notwithstanding numerous and dreadful gashes in different parts of his body, it was possible that, by submitting to the necessary treatment, he might recover.

Encouraged by this information, I endeavoured to awaken the zeal and compassion of my friend in Clithero's behalf. He recoiled with involuntary shuddering from any task