hours of artifice, sadness, and terror. I therefore decided in favour of the
project which had formerly proved amusing to my imagination, of withdrawing to
some distant, rural scene, a scene of calmness and obscurity, where for a few
years at least, perhaps during the life of Mr. Falkland, I might be hidden from
the world, recover the wounds my mind had received in this fatal connexion,
methodise and improve the experience which had been accumulated, cultivate the
faculties I in any degree possessed, and employ the intervals of these
occupations in simple industry and the intercourse of guileless, uneducated,
kind-intentioned minds. The menaces of my persecutor seemed to forebode the
inevitable interruption of this system. But I deemed it wise to put these
menaces out of my consideration. I compared them to death, which must infallibly
overtake us, we know not when; but the possibility of whose arrival next year,
next week, tomorrow, must be left out of the calculation of him who would enter
upon any important or well concerted undertaking.
    Such were the ideas that determined my choice. Thus did my youthful mind
delineate the system of distant years, even when the threats of instant calamity
still sounded in my ears. I was inured to the apprehension of mischief, till at
last the hoarse roarings of the beginning tempest had lost their power of
annihilating my peace. I however thought it necessary, while I was most palpably
within the sphere of the enemy, to exert every practicable degree of vigilance.
I was careful not to incur the hazards of darkness and solitude. When I left the
town, it was with the stage-coach, an obvious source of protection against
glaring and enormous violence. Meanwhile I found myself no more exposed to
molestation in my progress, than the man in the world who should have had the
least reason for apprehensions of this nature. As the distance increased, I
relaxed something in my precaution, though still awake to a sense of danger, and
constantly pursued with the image of my foe. I fixed upon an obscure market-town
in Wales as the chosen seat of my operations. This place recommended itself to
my observation, as I was wandering in quest of an abode. It was clean, chearful
and of great simplicity of appearance. It was at a distance from any public and
frequented road, and had nothing which could deserve the name of trade. The face
of nature around it was agreeably diversified, being partly wild and romantic,
and partly rich and abundant in production.
    Here I solicited employment in two professions; the first that of a
watchmaker,