On this hope I had
built a thousand agreeable visions. I had meditated innumerable projects
which the possession of this estate would enable me to execute. I had no
wish beyond the trade of agriculture, and beyond the opulence which a
hundred acres would give. These visions were now at an end. No doubt her own interest would be, to
this woman, the supreme law, and this would be considered as
irreconcilably hostile to mine. My father would easily be moulded to
her purpose, and that act easily extorted from him which should reduce
me to beggary. She had a gross and perverse taste. She had a numerous
kindred, indigent and hungry. On these his substance would speedily be
lavished. Me she hated, because she was conscious of having injured me,
because she knew that I held her in contempt, and because I had detected
her in an illicit intercourse with the son of a neighbour. The house in which I lived was no longer my own, nor even my father's. Hitherto I had thought and acted in it with the freedom of a master; but
now I was become, in my own conceptions, an alien and an enemy to the
roof under which I was born. Every tie which had bound me to it was
dissolved or converted into something which repelled me to a distance
from it. I was a guest whose presence was borne with anger and
impatience. I was fully impressed with the necessity of removal, but I knew not
whither to go, or what kind of subsistence to seek. My father had been a
Scottish emigrant, and had no kindred on this side of the ocean. My
mother's family lived in New Hampshire, and long separation had
extinguished all the rights of relationship in her offspring. Tilling
the earth was my only profession, and, to profit by my skill in it, it
would be necessary to become a day-labourer in the service of strangers;
but this was a destiny to which I, who had so long enjoyed the pleasures
of independence and command, could not suddenly reconcile myself. It
occurred to me that the city might afford me an asylum. A short day's
journey would transport me into it. I had been there twice or thrice in
my life, but only for a few hours each time. I knew not a human face,
and was a stranger to its modes and dangers. I was qualified for no
employment, compatible with a town life, but that of the pen. This,
indeed, had ever been a favourite tool with me; and, though it may
appear somewhat strange, it is no less true that I had had nearly as
much practice at the quill as at the mattock. But the sum of my skill
lay in tracing distinct characters. I had used it merely to transcribe
what others had written, or to give form to my own conceptions. Whether
the city would afford me employment, as a mere copyist, sufficiently
lucrative, was a point on which I possessed no means of information. My determination was hastened by the conduct of my new mother. My
conjectures as to the course she would pursue with regard to me had not
been erroneous. My father's deportment, in a short time, grew sullen and
austere. Directions were given in a magisterial tone, and any remissness
in the execution of his orders was rebuked with an air of authority. At
length these rebukes were followed by certain intimations that I was now
old enough to provide for myself; that it was time to think of some
employment by which I might secure a livelihood; that it was a shame for
me to spend my youth in idleness; that what he had gained was by his own
labour; and I must be indebted for my living to the same source. These hints were easily understood. At first, they excited indignation
and grief. I knew the source whence they sprung, and was merely able to
suppress the utterance of my feelings in her presence. My looks,
however, were abundantly significant, and my company became hourly more
insupportable. Abstracted from these considerations, my father's
remonstrances were not destitute of weight. He gave me being, but
sustenance ought surely to be my own gift. In the use of that for which
he had been indebted to his own exertions, he might reasonably consult
his own choice. He assumed no control over me; he merely did what he
would with his own, and, so far from fettering my liberty, he exhorted
me to use it for my own benefit, and to make provision for myself. I now reflected that there were other manual occupations besides that of
the plough. Among these none had fewer disadvantages than that of
carpenter or cabinet-maker. I had no knowledge of this art; but neither
custom, nor law, nor the impenetrableness of the mystery, required me to
serve a seven years' apprenticeship to it. A master in this trade might
possibly be persuaded to take me under his tuition; two or three years
would suffice to give me the requisite skill. Meanwhile my father would,
perhaps, consent to bear the cost of my maintenance. Nobody could live
upon less than I was willing to do. I mentioned these ideas to my father; but he merely commended my
intentions without offering to assist me in the execution of them. He
had full employment, he said, for all the profits of his ground. No
doubt, if I would bind myself to serve four or five years, my master
would be at the expense of my subsistence. Be that as it would, I must
look for nothing from him. I had shown very little regard for his
happiness; I had refused all marks of respect to a woman who was
entitled to it from her relation to him. He did not see why he should
treat as a son one who refused what was due to him as a father. He
thought it right that I should henceforth maintain myself. He did not
want my services on the farm, and the sooner I quitted his house the
better. I retired from this conference with a resolution to follow the advice
that was given. I saw that henceforth I must be my own protector, and
wondered at the folly that detained me so long under his roof. To leave
it was now become indispensable, and there could be no reason for
delaying my departure for a single hour. I determined to bend my course
to the city. The scheme foremost in my mind was to apprentice myself to
some mechanical trade. I did not overlook the evils of constraint and
the dubiousness as to the character of the master I should choose. I was
not without hopes that accident would suggest a different expedient, and
enable me to procure an immediate subsistence without forfeiting my
liberty. I determined to commence my journey the next morning. No wonder the
prospect of so considerable a change in my condition should deprive me
of sleep. I spent the night ruminating on the future, and in painting to
my fancy the adventures which I should be likely to meet. The foresight
of man is in proportion to his knowledge. No wonder that, in my state of
profound ignorance, not the faintest preconception should be formed of
the events that really befell me. My temper was inquisitive, but there
was nothing in the scene to which I was going from which my curiosity
expected to derive gratification.