menced, in the course of which my companion appeared less mysterious than before, and better disposed than I had thought him, and my fears were in some degree allayed.
I determined, however, this night, to secure for myself a separate bed-room; and accordingly, as soon as I had entered the inn, asked to be shown to one with a single bed, to which, although it was an ill-furnished and comfortless one, I ordered my luggage to be carried. When, after supper, I proceeded to occupy it, I found, to my surprise, that the bed was already tenanted by a person who was sound asleep. On inquiry, I was told that my travelling-companion had some time before asked to be shown the room assigned to me; that, as my friend, he had expressed displeasure at its imperfect accommodation, and observing that I was a foreign gentleman, accustomed to better lodging, had ordered my luggage to be transferred to another apartment, to which I was accordingly conducted. This, to my dismay, I found to be a double-bedded room, but I was told that the house contained no other, except the one I had originally been shown into, and which, when rejected on my behalf by my companion, had been assigned to another traveller. Here, then, I was again obliged to spend the night with the object of my dislike and dread, who evidently determined to keep me in his power, by compelling me to occupy the same apartment with himself. But I had no resource. Nothing had occurred which, without betraying unmanly and perhaps unjustifiable suspicion and dread, could warrant me in making a disturbance. I lay down only half-undressed, and had no sooner done so, than my persecutor entered the room, and claiming credit for the change of apartments he had made for me, a claim to which I had not the hypocrisy to respond, betook himself to bed. The night was to me one of terror and misery. The morning brought with it a slight return of cheerfulness and courage. It was only, however, after reflecting that I had lost much time at sea, and that my business in Canada did not admit of delay by the way, that I recovered self-control enough to proceed on my journey. We should that evening certainly reach Binghampton, a town of considerable size, where I could make arrangements for a private conveyance. To provide for the perils of the day, I felt a strong disposition to appropriate and conceal upon my person the carving-knife on the breakfast-table (for this morning we breakfasted before starting), and I should certainly have furnished myself with some weapon of defence, had it been in my power honestly to do so. As the best thing in the circumstances, as soon as we were seated in the stage, I secretly opened the large blade of my penknife, and held it in my hand, concealed in my great-coat pocket, during the day. Often, as I looked at the contracted brows and restless eyes of my companion, did I calculate whether, in the event of an attack, it could penetrate his blanket-coat so as to reach his heart. I surveyed him all over, and weighed the merits of twenty different thrusts at as many parts of his body.
The day was not of a complexion to raise my spirits. In fact, during a residence of some years on the other side of the Atlantic, I never saw a day of such perfect gloom. The weather for some time past had been clear, sharp, and frosty, with bright sunshine. The morning of this day was overcast and murky. An unearthly stillness reigned all round, and the atmosphere appeared thickening into darkness that might be felt. The region through which our journey lay—the north-eastern part of Pennsylvania—was dismal and uninhabited. We passed over miles of low barren rocky hillocks, thinly covered with scrubby oak and beech, diversified by an occasional descent into a morass or alluvial bottom, where the road, which was a mere track over the higher grounds, appeared for a few hundred yards like a deep narrow trench, cut through phalanxes of dark and gigantic swamp-elms. Nowhere, for miles, could be seen a clearance, or sign of habitation.
Soon after we had changed horses at a wretched tavern about noon, snow began to fall, as my companion had predicted in the morning, and although in small flakes, yet so thick and fast, that our pace became seriously affected. The quality of the vehicles and the horses had fallen off gradually as we had approached this desert part of the country, and both were now very bad. On and on we plodded, through weary miles of scrub-wood and desolation. As the snow began to fall, the death-like stillness of the air was broken, and a beeeze arose, which speedily increased to a gale, and by about three o’clock had become a violent tempest, drifting the thickly-falling snow from the north-west horizontally, so as almost to blind the driver and the horses, and wreathing it here and there so as completely to obliterate the track. It was quite clear, the driver said, that we could not hope to reach Binghampton that night. We might be thankful if we could get as far as the inn at Great-Bend—a hamlet so called from its position on a loop of the Susquehanna. It now began to grow dark, and he soon announced to us that he could not venture to proceed even to Great-Bend. He proposed to turn aside to a small country tavern, which he said lay upon the river about a mile from the point at which we then were. At this proposal my fears became terribly aroused. I remembered that this driver alone, of all the people at the various inns along our route, had seemed to be acquainted with my fellow-traveller, and yet they evidently wished to conceal their acquaintance, for I had seen them conversing earnestly together for a considerable time, in a remote corner of the stable-yard at the inn from which the driver had come. I felt that I was now approaching the awful crisis, the anticipation of which had so long afflicted me. Bad as the weather and roads had evidently become, they did not appear to me to afford sufficient reason for diverging from our route when so near a proper resting-place. My suspicions of a sinister design were further strengthened by the reflection, that in so desolate a region there could be no place of entertainment frequented by travellers, or deserving of the name—in fact, no tavern even of the lowest class. I stated this objection, being determined that, at all hazards, we should push on to Great-Bend. But it was answered, that the inn at which it was proposed we should stop, although little frequented during the greater part of the year,