The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

I was on the road before daybreak, and walked till late at night, occasionally stopping to bathe my feet in a brook, or to rest for a few minutes in the shadow of a tree. The possibility of my being pursued by the doctor was ever present to my mind, and led me to keep a sharp lookout for coming vehicles. Toward sunset a horse and buggy appeared, coming over a hill, and very soon the resemblance of vehicle and driver to the turnout of the doctor became so striking that I concealed myself in the shrubbery by the wayside until the sound of the wheels told me he was well past. The probability that my pursuer was in front of me was an added source of discomfort which led me to avoid the road and walk in the woods wherever the former was not visible to some distance ahead. But I neither saw nor heard anything more of the supposed pursuer, though, from what I afterward learned, there can be little doubt that it was actually Foshay himself.

The advent of darkness soon relieved me of the threatened danger, but added new causes of solicitude. The evening advanced, and the lights in the windows of the houses were becoming fewer and fewer, and yet the stage had not appeared. I slackened my pace, and made many stops, beginning to doubt whether I might not as well give up the stage and look for an inn. It was, I think, after ten o'clock when the rattling of wheels announced its approach. It was on a descending grade, and passed me like a meteor, in the darkness, quite heedless of my calls and gesticulations. Fortunately a house was in sight where I was hospitably entertained, and I was very soon sound asleep, as became one who had walked fifty miles or more since daylight.

Thus ended a day to which I have always looked back as the most memorable of my life. I felt its importance at the time. As I walked and walked, the question in my mind was, what am I doing and whither am I going? Am I doing right or wrong? Am I going forward to success in life, or to failure and degradation? Vainly, vainly, I tried to peer into the thick darkness of the future. No definite idea of what success might mean could find a place in my mind. I had sometimes indulged in daydreams, but these come not to a mind occupied as mine on that day. And if they had, and if fancy had been allowed its wildest flight in portraying a future, it is safe to say that the figure of an honorary academician of France, seated in the chair of Newton and Franklin in the palace of the Institute, would not have been found in the picture.

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity. If depressed by trial, I think how light would this have appeared to that boy had a sight of the future been opened up to him. When, in the halls of learning, I have gone through the ceremonies which made me a citizen of yet another commonwealth in the world of letters, my thoughts have gone back to that day; and I have wished that the inexorable law of Nature could then have been suspended, if only for one moment, to show the scene that Providence held in reserve.

Next morning I was on my way betimes, having still more than thirty miles before me. And the miles seemed much longer than they did the day before, for my feet were sore and my limbs stiff. Quite welcome, therefore, was a lift offered by a young farmer, who, driving a cart, overtook me early in the forenoon. He was very sociable, and we soon got into an interesting conversation.

I knew that Dr. Foshay hailed from somewhere in this region, where his father still lived, so I asked my companion whether he knew a family of that name. He knew them quite well.

"Do you know anything of one of the sons who is a doctor?"

"Yes indeed; I know all about him, but he ain't no doctor. He tried to set up for one in Salisbury, but the people there must a' found him out before this, and I don't know where he is now."

"But I thought he studied medicine in Fredericton or Maine or somewhere on the border."

"Oh, he went off to the States and pretended to study, but he never did it. I tell you he ain't no more a doctor nor I am. He ain't smart enough to be a doctor."