The sale was made at once.  I do not know if I got anything like the value of the watch, but the next day saw me with fifty dollars in my pocket, a small bundle, made up from the most available part of my wardrobe, under my arm, prepared to walk to Louisa, avowedly to buy supplies, but with the secret determination to meet there the coal-boats which were bound for the mouth, ask a passage on them as far as Catlettsburg, and there take the first steamer that passed, and let it carry me whither it would.

There was no pause of regret, no delay for parting looks or words; from the moment that I had made up my mind to go, I felt nothing but a desperate eagerness to be away, to be in action.  The few words necessary to prepare my step-mother for my ostensible errand were soon said, the good-morning calmly spoken, and I passed into the forest-path leading to the town.  A pang smote me as I remembered her conscientious discharge of duty toward me for so many years; but it was duty, not love, that had urged her, and while I said that to myself, I said, too, that time would bring to me the opportunity of repaying her.

Toward the settlement on the opposite shore I turned no look.  I would not trust myself; I knew my own weakness too well; this desperate energy which was carrying me on now would fail, if I allowed my heart one moment’s indulgence.  Steadily I walked on through the woods, my own woods, which, perhaps, I should never see again, till, wearied out by the exertion, which had precluded thought, I saw the houses of Louisa rise before me.

The boats lay at the fork above the town.  I had informed myself of their movements, and knew they were to start at noon.  A few inquiries for groceries and so forth, where I know they could not be gotten, gave me an excuse for the proposition to the captain of the boats to give me a passage to Catlettsburg.  It was readily granted, and the crew, most of them Sandy men, put up a rough awning, and, spreading under it some blankets, did their kind uttermost to make me comfortable.

I remember now, as one looks back into a dream, the afternoon and night that passed before we reached Catlettsburg.  I lay perfectly quiet, watching the shadowy trees as we glided past them, noting their varied reflections in the water, marking every peculiarity of shore and stream, hearing the jests and laughter, the words of command and the oaths, that went round among the boatmen; but all passed as something with which I had nothing to do.  To me there was the burning desire to put a great distance between myself and my home,—­but with it, too, the consciousness, that, as I could do nothing to expedite our slow progress, so neither could I afford to waste upon it in impatient restlessness the strength which would be so much needed afterwards.  The men brought me a cup of coffee from their supper, which gave me strength for the night.  The biscuit I could not taste.

But how long was that night! how tedious the summer dawn! and how slowly went the hours till we brought up our boats at the landing at Catlettsburg!