"Ah!" said Frederick, endeavoring, in a most transparently artful manner, to appear ignorant and indifferent.
"If you are going so soon," said his aunt, "we had better see if your wardrobe is in a fit state for so long an absence."
"I shall need very little," replied Frederick; "the less the better, as I intend to carry it myself."
"I have a little light valise I can lend you," said a cousin of his, John Williams, who happened to be passing the evening there.
The offer was accepted, and the rest of the time was passed in discussing the many delightful and romantic adventures that pedestrian tourists have met with both in Europe and America.
With a heart full of hope and joyous expectation, Frederick took his valise and a stout stick, with which all prudent pedestrians provide themselves, and saw with delight the dusty pavements merging into the dustier road, and the houses becoming more and more widely separated.
He had intended to choose the byways rather than the main road, and to make it convenient to stop at farm-houses instead of the country taverns along his route, thinking by this means to be able to see more of the people, and to gain a little insight into habits and customs with which he felt as though he ought to be somewhat more familiar. He had anticipated a great deal of pleasure from the variety of character and mode of life which would thus be brought under his notice; but his first attempt proved so unsatisfactory, that he gave up all farther idea of intruding on the privacy of those who were unprepared for receiving strangers.
He had stopped at a farm-house, and asked if he could be lodged for the night just at eight o'clock. He found the occupants preparing to retire, and, though they made him welcome, and entertained him hospitably, yet he could not help perceiving that he gave them additional trouble; and, when he found that they would not receive payment for it, he decided that it was a false position in which he had placed himself, and that nothing but necessity should induce him to adopt the same course again. He lacked the cheerful assurance with which some men can make themselves at home anywhere, without a suspicion that others are not equally pleased with their society.
The next morning, feeling rather footsore and unrefreshed, after his unusual exertions of the day before, Frederick took advantage of a stage that was going in the same direction with himself, and rode to the village in which he had decided to pass the night. Here he amused himself by wandering about the beautiful and romantic country around, and returning when he was weary to the country inn. This he found so much easier and pleasanter a mode of travelling than the fatiguing one of walking, that he went almost to the foot of the Green Mountains before he thought of resuming it. Then, ashamed of his faint-heartedness, he left the stage, and, shouldering his valise again, he walked for some hours quite vigorously.
He entered the little village of Hillsdale just as the moon was rising, and, after a supper such as none but a pedestrian could eat, he strolled out to enjoy the loveliness of the summer evening and his own meditations, by the banks of a clear and rapid stream, the beauty of which had attracted his notice as he was entering the village. He walked for some distance up its banks, and then, throwing himself down on a grassy mound, he lay in a sort of musing trance, watching the moonlight shimmering on the flashing waters, and listening to the tinkling music of their flow, while his imagination was busily engaged in inventing deeds of heroism and chivalric daring, by which he fancied himself proving to the lady of his love that he was worthy of one so noble and high-souled.