man to die, whose whole soul commands him to continue to live?" I looked
back with abhorrence to the subjection in which I had been held. I did
not hate the author of my misfortunes--truth and justice acquit me of
that; I rather pitied the hard destiny to which he seemed condemned. But
I thought with unspeakable loathing of those errors, in consequence of
which every man is fated to be, more or less, the tyrant or the slave. I
was astonished at the folly of my species, that they did not rise up as
one man, and shake off chains so ignominious, and misery so
insupportable. So far as related to myself, I resolved--and this
resolution has never been entirety forgotten by me--to hold myself
disengaged from this odious scene, and never fill the part either of the
oppressor or the sufferer. My mind continued in this enthusiastical
state, full of confidence, and accessible only to such a portion of fear
as served rather to keep up a state of pleasurable emotion than to
generate anguish and distress, during the whole of this nocturnal
expedition. After a walk of three hours, I arrived, without accident, at
the village from which I hoped to have taken my passage for the
metropolis. At this early hour every thing was quiet; no sound of any
thing human saluted my ear. It was with difficulty that I gained
admittance into the yard of the inn, where I found a single ostler
taking care of some horses. From him I received the unwelcome tidings,
that the coach was not expected till six o'clock in the morning of the
day after to-morrow, its route through that town recurring only three
times a week.

This intelligence gave the first check to the rapturous inebriation by
which my mind had been possessed from the moment I quitted the
habitation of Mr. Falkland. The whole of my fortune in ready cash
consisted of about eleven guineas. I had about fifty more, that had
fallen to me from the disposal of my property at the death of my father;