resolutely
bent was I to adopt some bold career,--some enterprising path, where
ambition should supply to me the pleasures and excitements that others
found among friends and home.

I now perceived how unsuitable would be to me the quiet monotony of
a peasant's life; how irksome the recurrence of the same daily
occupations, the routine of ceaseless labor, the intercourse with
those whose views and hopes strayed not beyond their own hedgerows. A
soldier's life appeared to realize all that I looked for; but then
the conversation of the piper recurred to me, and I remembered how he
painted these men to me as mere hireling bravos, to whom glory or fame
was nothing,--merely actuated by the basest of passions, the slaves of
tyranny. All the atrocities he mentioned of the military in the past
year came up before me, and with them the brave resistance of the people
in their struggle for independence. How my heart glowed with enthusiasm
as I thought over the bold stand they had made, and how I panted to be
a man, and linked in such a cause! Every gloomy circumstance in my own
fate seemed as the result of that grinding oppression under which my
country suffered,--even to the curse vented on me by one whose ruin
and desolation lay at my own father's door. My temples throbbed, and
my heart beat painfully against my side, as I revolved these thoughts
within me; and when I rose from my bed that morning, I was a rebel with
all my soul.

The day, like the preceding one, was stormy and inclement; the rain
poured down without ceasing, and the dark, lowering sky gave no promise
of better things. The household of the cottage remained all at home, and
betook themselves to such occupations as indoor permitted. The women sat
down to their spinning-wheels; some of the men employed themselves in
repairing their tools, and others in making nets for fishing: but all
were engaged. Meanwhile, amid the sounds of labor was mixed the busy hum
of merry voices, as they chatted away pleasantly, with many a story
and many a song lightening the long hours of the dark day. As for me, I
longed impatiently for Darby's return: a thousand half-formed plans were
flitting through my mind; and I burned to hear whether Basset was still
in pursuit of me; what course he was adopting to regain me within his
control; if Darby had seen my friend Bubbleton, and whether he showed
any disposition to befriend and protect me. These and such like thoughts
kept passing throu