with no hope but to wear out to-morrow, and all the to-morrows which
make up life, among the same dull scenes and in the same wretched toil
that had darkened the sunshine of to-day. But there were some, full
of the primeval instinct, who preserved the freshness of youth to
their latest years by the continual excitement of new objects, new
pursuits, and new associates; and cared little, though their
birthplace might have been here in New England, if the grave should
close over them in Central Asia. Fate was summoning a parliament of
these free spirits; unconscious of the impulse which directed them to
a common centre, they had come hither from far and near; and last of
all appeared the representative of those mighty vagrants, who had
chased the deer during thousands of years, and were chasing it now in
the Spirit Land. Wandering down through the waste of ages, the woods
had vanished around his path; his arm had lost somewhat of its
strength, his foot of its fleetness, his mien of its wild regality,
his heart and mind of their savage virtue and uncultured force; but
here, untamable to the routine of artificial life, roving now along
the dusty road, as of old over the forest leaves, here was the Indian
still.

"Well," said the old showman, in the midst of my meditations, "here is
an honest company of us,--one, two, three, four, five, six,--all going
to the camp-meeting at Stamford. Now, hoping no offence, I should
like to know where this young gentleman may be going?"

I started. How came I among these wanderers? The free mind, that
preferred its own folly to another's wisdom; the open spirit, that
found companions everywhere; above all, the restless impulse, that had
so often made me wretched in the midst of enjoyments: these were my
claims to be of their society.