Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/91

 ever from my native soil; I vowed never more to behold the face of my Clarice, to abandon my friends, my books, all my wonted labours and accustomed recreations.

"I was neither ashamed nor afraid: I considered not in what way the justice of the country would affect me—it made no part of my contemplations; I was not embarrassed by the choice of expedients for trammelling up the visible consequences, and for eluding suspicion. The idea of abjuring my country, and flying for ever from the hateful scene, partook, to my apprehension, of the vast, the boundless, and the strange: of plunging from the height of fortune to obscurity and indigence, corresponded with my present state of mind: it was of a piece with the tremendous and wonderful events that had just happened.

"These were the images that haunted me while I stood speechlessly gazing at the ruin before me. I heard a noise from without, or imagined that I heard it: my reverie was broken, and my muscular power restored. I descended into the street through doors of which I possessed one set of keys, and hurried by the shortest way beyond the precincts of the city. I had laid no plan; my conceptions with regard to the future were shapeless and confused: successive incidents supplied me with a clue, and suggested, as they rose, the next step to be taken.

"I threw off the garb of affluence, and assumed a beggar's attire. That I had money about me for the accomplishment of my purposes was wholly accidental. I travelled along the coast, and when I arrived at one town, knew not why I should go farther; but my restlessness was unabated, and change was some relief. I at length arrived at Belfast. A vessel was preparing for America. I embraced eagerly the opportunity of passing into a new world. I arrived at Philadelphia. As soon as I landed, I wandered hither, and was content to wear out my few remaining days in the service of Inglefield.

"I have no friends. Why should I trust my story to another? I have no solicitude about concealment: but who is there will derive pleasure or benefit from my rehearsal?—and why should I expatiate on so hateful a theme? Yet now have I consented to this. I have