Nor, all this while, did I have the slightest fear of detection.  I looked upon myself as a victim rather than as a criminal, and for what I had done, and much that I had not done, I had more than paid the penalty.  So far as all my business transactions were concerned, my course had always been honorable, and in my profession, for my cures and for my medicines, I enjoyed a good reputation which all my efforts were directed to deserve.

Of course, now and then, I met people in Portland, and especially in Boston, who had known me in former years, and who knew something of my past life; but these were generally my friends who sympathized with my sufferings, or who, at least, were willing to blot out the past in my better behavior of the present.  One day in Boston a young man came up to me and said: 

“How do you do, Doctor?”

“Quite well,” I replied; “but you have the advantage of me; I am sure I do not remember you, if I ever knew you.”

“You don’t remember me!  Why, I am the son of the jailer in Montpelier with whom you spent so many months before you went to Windsor; I knew you in a minute, and Doctor, I’ve been in Boston a week and have got ‘strapped;’ how to get back to Montpelier I don’t know, unless you will lend me five or six dollars which I will send back to you the moment I get home.”

“I remember you well, now,” said I; “you are the little rascal who wouldn’t even go and buy me a cigar unless I gave you a dime for doing it; and then, sometimes, you cheated me out of my money; I wouldn’t lend you a dollar now if it would save you from six month’s imprisonment in your father’s filthy jail.  Good morning.”

And that was the last I saw of him.

I was getting tired of Maine.  I had been there longer than I had stayed in any place, except in the Vermont State Prison, for the past fifteen years, and I began to long for fresh scenes and a fresh field for practice.  I had accumulated some means, and thought I might take life a little easier-make a home for myself somewhere, practicing my profession when I wanted to, and at other times enjoying the leisure I loved and really needed.  So I closed up my business in Augusta and Portland, put my money in my pocket, and once more went out into the world on a prospecting tour.  My first idea was to go to the far West, and I went to Troy with the intention of staying there a few days, and then bidding farewell to the East forever.  The New England States presented no attractions to me; I had exhausted Maine, or rather it had exhausted me; New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts had too many unpleasant associations, if indeed they were safe states for me, with my record to live in, and Connecticut I knew very little about.  Certainly I had no intention of trying to settle in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.  The west was the place; anywhere in the west.