“Why, as respects your first conjecture, Forrester,” returned the youth, “you are by no means out of the way.  I am not much over twenty, and am free to confess, do not care to be held much older.  Touching your further inquiry, not to seem churlish, but rather to speak frankly and in a like spirit with yourself, I am not desirous to repeat to others the story that has been, perhaps, but learned in part by myself.  I do not exactly believe that it would promote my plans to submit my affairs to the examination of other people; nor do I think that any person whomsoever would be very much benefited by the knowledge.  You seem to have forgotten, however, that I have already said that I am journeying to Tennessee.”

“Left Carolina for good and all, heh?”

“Yes—­perhaps for ever.  But we will not talk of it.”

“Well, you’re in a wild world now, ’squire.”

“This is no strange region to me, though I have lost my way in it.  I have passed a season in the county of Gwinnett and the neighborhood, with my uncle’s family, when something younger, and have passed, twice, journeying between Carolina and Tennessee, at no great distance from this very spot.  But your service to me, and your Carolina birth, deserves that I should be more free in my disclosures; and to account for the sullenness of my temper, which you may regard as something inconsistent with our relationship, let me say, that whatever my prospects might have been, and whatever my history may be, I am at this moment altogether indifferent as to the course which I shall pursue.  It matters not very greatly to me whether I take up my abode among the neighboring Cherokees, or, farther on, along with them, pursue my fortunes upon the shores of the Red river or the Missouri.  I have become, during the last few days of my life, rather reckless of human circumstance, and, perhaps, more criminally indifferent to the necessities of my nature, and my responsibilities to society and myself, than might well beseem one so youthful, and, as you say, with prospects like those which you conjecture, and not erroneously, to have been mine.  All I can say is, that, when I lost my way last evening, my first feeling was one of a melancholy satisfaction; for it seemed to me that destiny itself had determined to contribute towards my aim and desire, and to forward me freely in the erratic progress, which, in a gloomy mood, I had most desperately and, perhaps, childishly undertaken.”

There was a stern melancholy in the deep and low utterance—­the close compression of lip—­the steady, calm eye of the youth, that somewhat tended to confirm the almost savage sentiment of despairing indifference to life, which his sentiments conveyed; and had the effect of eliciting a larger degree of respectful consideration from the somewhat uncouth but really well-meaning and kind companion who stood beside him.  Forrester had good sense enough to perceive that Ralph had been gently nurtured and deferentially treated—­that