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 his pride or vanity, or perhaps some nobler emotion, had suffered slight or rebuke; and that it was more than probable this emotion would, before long, give place to others, if not of a more manly and spirited, at least of a more subdued and reasonable character.

Accordingly, without appearing to attach any importance to, or even to perceive the melancholy defiance contained in the speech of the young man, he confined himself entirely to a passing comment upon the facility with which, having his eyes open, and the bright sunshine and green trees for his guides, he had suffered himself to lose his way--an incident excessively ludicrous in the contemplation of one, who, in his own words, could take the tree with the 'possum, the scent with the hound, the swamp with the deer, and be in at the death with all of them--for whom the woods had no labyrinth and the night no mystery.