Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/266

, to afford him comfort, and inspire him with courage and hope.

Inglefield replied to my questions—"Oh yes! he has appeared—the strange being is again upon the stage! Shortly after he left his sick bed, I heard from Philip Beddington, of Chetasco, that Deb's hut had found a new tenant. At first, I imagined that the Scotsman who built it had returned; but making closer enquiries, I found that the new tenant was my servant. I had no inclination to visit him myself, but frequently enquired respecting him of those who lived or passed that way, and find that he still lives there."

"But how?" said I—"what is his mode of subsistence? The winter has been no time for cultivation; and he found, I presume, nothing in the ground."

"Deb's hut," replied my friend, "is his lodging and his place of retirement; but food and clothing he procures by labouring on a neighbouring farm. This farm is next to that of Beddington, who consequently knows something of his present situation. I find little or no difference in his present deportment, and those appearances which he assumed while living with me; except that he retires every night to his hut, and holds as little intercourse as possible with the rest of mankind. He dines at his employer's table; but his supper, which is nothing but rye bread, he carries home with him; and at all those times, when disengaged from employment, he secludes himself in his hut, or wanders nobody knows whither."

This was the substance of Inglefield's intelligence. I gleaned from it some satisfaction; it proved the condition of Clithero to be less deplorable and desperate than I had previously imagined; his fatal and gloomy thoughts seemed to have somewhat yielded to tranquillity.

In the course of my reflections, however, I could not but perceive that his condition, though eligible when compared with what it once was, was likewise disastrous and humiliating, compared with his youthful hopes and his actual merits. For such a one to mope away his life in this unsocial and savage state, was deeply to be deplored: it was my duty, if possible, to prevail on him to relinquish