He journeyed on, hour after hour, in a state of
mazed bewilderment, one thought tumbling over another, and when
morning broke over the flats he had not advanced a single step in the
determination of his future path. Nothing is more painful to a man
of any energy than the inability to put things in order in himself--
to place before himself what he has to do, and arrange the means for
doing it. To be the passive victim of a rushing stream of
disconnected impressions is torture, especially if the emergency be
urgent. So when the sun came up Zachariah began to be ashamed of
himself that the night had passed in these idiotic moonings, which
had left him just where he was, and he tried to settle what he was to
do when he reached Manchester. He did not know a soul; but he could
conjecture why he was advised to go thither. It was a disaffected
town, and Friends of the People were very strong there. His first
duty was to get a lodging, his second to get work, and his third to
find out a minister of God under whom he could worship. He put this
last, not because it was the least important, but because he had the
most time to decide upon it. At about ten o'clock at night he came
to his journey's end, and to his joy saw his wife waiting for him.
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